Dr. Aref Ali Nayed is Founder and Director of Kalam Research & Media (KRM). He currently lectures on Islamic Theology, Logic, and Spirituality at the restored Uthman Pasha Madrasa in Tripoli, Libya, and supervises Graduate Students at the Islamic Call College there. He is Senior Advisor to the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme; Fellow of the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute in Jordan; and was also recently appointed to the Board of Advisors of the Templeton Foundation. He was Professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (Rome), and the International Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization (Malaysia). He has headed an Information Technology company. He received his BSc in Engineering, MA in the Philosophy of Science, and a PhD in Hermeneutics from the University of Guelph (Canada). He also studied at the University of Toronto and the Pontifical Gregorian University. He has been involved in various Inter-Faith initiatives since 1987, including the recent “A Common Word” process, and has authored several scholarly works including, co-authored with Jeff Mitscherling and Tanya Ditommaso, The Author’s Intention (Lexington Books, 2004). His recently published book is Operational Hermeneutics: Interpretation as the Engagement of Operational Artifacts (KRM, 2011). His forthcoming books include Catholic Engagements: A Muslim Theologian’s Journey in Muslim-Catholic Dialogue (KRM) and Future of Muslim Theology (to be published by Blackwell in parallel with Future of Jewish Theology by Stephen Kepness and Future of Christian Theology by David F. Ford.
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Sheikh Usama al-Sayyid al-Azhari is an Azhari scholar and Senior Fellow of Kalam Research & Media (KRM). He teaches Hadith, Logic, and Islamic Creed at the renowned Al-Azhar Mosque’s Riwaq al-Atrak in Cairo, Egypt. He also holds a teaching post in the Faculty of Usul al-Din and Da‘wah at Al-Azhar University, Egypt. Sheikh Usama was chosen by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa to deliver the Friday sermons on his behalf in the Sultan Hassan Mosque from 2005 and until late 2009. In 1999 he graduated with distinction, from the Faculty of Usul al-Din and Da‘wah, al-Azhar University, Egypt. The same faculty, in 2005, awarded him an MA in Hadith and its Sciences. Currently he is a PhD candidate in the same field of research. He studied with many esteemed scholars from all over the Islamic world, acquiring numerous ijazat all testifying to his accepted position in the unbroken-chains of transmission known as isnad essential in the field of Islam sciences and scholarship. His scholarly body of works includes the seminal Ihya’ Ulum al-Hadith (The Revival of the HadÏth Sciences); al-Madkhal ila Usul al-Tafsir (An Introduction to the fundamentals of Tafsir); al-Ihya’ al-Kabir l-Ma’alem al-Manhaj al-Azhari al-Munir (Towards a Grand Renewal: The Salient Features of the Azhari Approach); and an introduction to al-Nibras. Sheikh Usama’s forthcoming titles are Asanid al-Misryyin and Al-‘alaqah baina al-Fiqh wa Usuli.
Sohail Younus Nakhooda is Inter-Faith Research Fellow, and Research and Publication Manager at Kalam Research & Media, Dubai, UAE. He was the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Islamica Magazine. He was also on the editorial board of the journal Encounters and served as Assistant Editor for the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and for the Muslim World Book Review. He received a BSc in Government from the London School of Economics, postgraduate certificates in Catholic Theology from the St. Thomas Aquinas Pontifical University (Angelicum) in Rome, and another MA in Protestant Theology from the University of Nottingham, UK. He has over 15 years of design expertise, and was a finalist in the prestigious British Book Design and Production Awards (2002). He won gold awards from the Calendar Marketing Association of North America for his design work. His research interests span Muslim-Christian Relations, Hermeneutics, and Media & Art.
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Abdulhakim A. Elghadi is Research Associate at Kalam Research & Media, Tripoli, Libya. He graduated in Computer Engineering from the Alfatah University in Tripoli, Libya and obtained a Masters degree in Artificial Intelligence from the Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan. He also holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of London, UK. He is deeply interested in philosophical inquiry and the religious condition and has completed studies in Metaphysics, Logic, Psychological basis of philosophizing, Linguistics, Mathematics, Science and Technology. His greatest hope is to witness the return of philosophy as a thriving discipline in the Muslim world once again. Gadi is fluent in Arabic, English, Japanese and is also currently learning German.
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Mohamed Almselate is Research Assistant at Kalam Research & Media, Tripoli, Libya. He did his postgraduate studies in Computer Science from the open university in Tripoli and Islamic Studies at the Othman Pasha Madrasa in Tripoli, where he specialised in theology, jurisprudence and Arabic language. Prior to joining KRM he worked for a publishing company and acquired experience in editing, research, publishing and book distribution. His primary academic interests are theology, philosophy and logic.
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Akram Ibrahim Hassan is Chief Finance Manager of Kalam Research and Media, Dubai, UAE. He is also the Finance Manager of the Agathon Systems Group for the last 11 years. He graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, Accounting and Business Administration at the University of Alexandria, Egypt. He also holds an ACPA in Accounting and Business Administration, and is also certified in legal accounting. He worked previously as material accountant in Egypt’s leading petroleum company, WEPCO, and then in Saudi Arabia as Chief Accountant in a home appliances establishment and hotel apartments. He also worked in the UAE for a company specializing in hotel equipment and finally joined Agathon Systems Group in 1998.
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