Ramadan 2011 Speaker Bios

Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawthari: Mufti Muhammad graduated from Darul `Ulum in Bury, UK, and then went on to complete an advanced degree of study in fiqh with Mufti Taqi Uthmani in Pakistan, where he graduated with an ijazah in issuing fatwas. He went back to the UK where he has since been teaching at the Darul `Ulum in Leicester, one of the largest madaris in the UK. He currently is an instructor of advanced fiqh and the Sunan of Imam Nasa’i. He also runs Darul Iftaa (daruliftaa.com) one of the UK’s most respected fatwa and research services, and has been invited to the US and Canada on multiple occasions; in fact, he has been invited as a featured speaker many times by ISNA and RIS, the two largest Muslim conferences in North America. For a more detailed bio, please see http://www.daruliftaa.com/biography . 

Shaykh Murabit Benavidez: Shaykh Murabit Benavidez was born in Fremont, California in 1979. He was raised in a Catholic, Mexican household before he embraced Islam at 19. His desire to seek Sacred Knowledge led him to Syria shortly thereafter, where he began his studies in Arabic and the Islamic Sciences. In 2002, Shaykh Murabit continued his studies in the deserts of Mauritania, in Arabic, Fiqh, Aqidah, and Tasawwuf. Some of the eminent scholars Shaykh Murabit studied under include: Murabit al-Hajj, Murabit Hadamin bin AbdurRahman, Abdullah bin Ahmad Fal, and Murabit Ahmad Fal bin Ahamadna. He is currently an instructor for Ilm Tree, an innovated Muslim education Co-op (ilmtree.org), Ta’leef Collective, one of California’s most successful da’wa efforts (taleefcollective.org), and teaches Arabic for the Summer Arabic Intensives at the Zaytuna College (zaytunacollege.org).

Shaykh Qasim Hatim: Shaykh Qasim was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where his forefathers built the very first Mosque in North America.  His family moved to Washington State in 1993 where he would later earn a full-ride scholarship to play football for the University of Washington.  Originally recruited as a linebacker, he would go on to earn a starting position in 2001 at nose tackle on the top-ranked and Rose Bowl-winning Huskies.   Appearing in Sports Illustrated and being scouted by NFL teams – including the Seahawks – Shaykh Qasim’s future path seemed destined for the “All-American Dream.”

 

However, shortly after the spectacular finish in the Rose Bowl, Shaykh Qasim’s life took a drastic turn.  He woke up one morning, planning on heading out to Spring training, but he found himself unable to breathe.  Shortly after being rushed to the hospital, he was diagnosed with several blot clots that passed through his heart and into his lungs, causing the shortness of breath.  Face-to-face with his own death, was the end of his long-lived football career and the birth of an entirely new direction: devotion and service to God.

A year after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2003, Shaykh Qasim traveled to Yemen to study in the renowned city of Tarim to fulfill his internal promise.  He first enrolled in the Badr Language Institute and then transitioned into the prominent Dar al-Mustafa to study the traditional Islamic disciplines under some of the most illustrious scholars of our time.  Shaykh Qasim completed his rigorous studies in 2011, with ijazaat (licenses to teach) in: Shafi’i fiqh (jurisprudence), ’aqeedah (Islamic creed), nahu (Arabic grammar), tajweed (Quranic recitation in hafs), and da’wa (methodology of inviting to Islam) amongst other traditional disciplines.

Currently Shaykh Qasim is the Resident Scholar and Board Member of the Mihraab Foundation based in Seattle, Washington.

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