Every great project and community is the product of the knowledge, wisdom and sincerity of its teachers and guides. The Quran Literacy Institute is the output of the collective collaboration and prayers of numerous individuals. Specifically, there have been a particular group of advisors that have provided their valuable insight, advice and inspiration at all stages of our work, and continue to do so on a regular basis. Our institute values their contribution immensely and will continue to rely on their valuable input.
Shaykh Dr. Waleed Edrees Almeneese
Shaykh Dr. Waleed Edrees Almeneese is the president and chancellor of the Islamic University of Minnesota, Imam of Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Minneapolis and member of the Permanent Fatwa Community of AMJA (the American Muslim Jurists Association). He is a prolific scholar and author, well-known throughout the world, who is an expert in the modes of Quranic recitation and holder of some of the highest isnāds in Qurʾān and ḥadīth in the world today. He has provided valuable advice as to the structure and division of the courses at the Quran Literacy Institute. In August 2016, he signed an agreement to accredit the courses of the Quran Literacy Institute through the Islamic University of Minnesota.
Biography of Shaykh Dr. Waleed Edrees
Dr. Hatem Al-Haj
Dr Hatem Al-Haj is the former Dean of Mishkah University, founder of the Building Blocks social service organization, and member of the Permanent Fatwa Community of AMJA (the American Muslim Jurists Association). He is a prolific author and scholar well-versed in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) who is based in New Jersey and continues to benefit various communities throughout the country. His published books include the Fiqh of Worship, which is a translation of Ibn Qudāmah’s fiqh work Umdat al-Aḥkām, and A Guide to Male-Female Interactions in Islam. He has also published articles in various forums and presented position papers to scholarly conferences throughout the world. He has enthusiastically supported the work of the Quran Literacy Institute.
Maulana Yusuf Islahi
Maulānā Muḥammad Yūsuf Iṣlāḥī is a world-renowned scholar and author from India. Born into a scholarly family, he memorized the Qurʾān at the age of 12 and studied at major centers of learning in India, including Maẓāhir al-ʿUlūm seminary in Sahāranpūr and Madrasat al-Iṣlāḥ in Azamgarh. His teachers included his own father Shaykh al-Ḥadīth Maulānā ʿAbd al-Qadīm Khān (who in turn was a student of Khalīl Aḥmad Sahāranpūrī (d. 1346/1928), Maulānā Akhtar Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī (the major student of the Qurʾānic scholar Maulānā Farāhī), and Maulānā Jalil Aḥsan among others. Among his greatest teachers and influences was the great revivalist Maulānā Mawdūdī. In addition, he has known and spent time with a number of great scholars of the past century, including Shaykh Abul Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwi (who held him in great esteem), Maulānā Muḥammad Zakariyyā, and the late Grand Muftī of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Ibn Bāz, who was the one who first sent him to the US for the sake of daʿwah in 1978. Since that time, he has been a regular visitor to numerous communities throughout the US and was instrumental in the founding of various masājid and community centers throughout the country.
Shaykh Iṣlāḥī is the founder and director of Jāmiʿat al-Ṣāliḥāt in Rāmpūr, which represents his passion and is perhaps the only institution of higher Islamic learning for women.
Imam Nizam Ahmad Raouf Zaman
Imam Raouf is the senior Imām of the Muslim Center of Middlesex County (MCMC) in central New Jersey.
He has a lifetime of service to various communities throughout the world. He graduated from the Aleemiyyah Institute of Islamic Studies in Karachi, Pakistan in 1975 and from the Faculty of Uṣūl al-Dīn of the renowned Al-Azhar University of Egypt in 1978. He has also served as an Islamic worker and teacher with the Guyana Islamic Trust from 1979-2000, and held the position of Principal at Guyana Islamic Institute from the period of 1997-2000. In addition, he was Imām of Masjid Darul Qur’an in Bay Shore, Long Island, NY from 2000-2003.
In New Jersey, he has been the Imām, counselor and guide of one of the largest and fastest growing communities in the state. He has also been extremely active in interfaith and outreach work with local churches, universities and the media. He has been a great supporter of the work of the Quran Literacy Institute, as well as ILF, since its inception.
Shaykh Osama Hasan
Osama Hassan is a scholar of Qurʾānic readings based in New Jersey and author of a commentary on Ibn al-Jazarī’s classic text, al–Muqaddimah, on the rules of Tajweed. The son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Imām of the oldest masjid in North Africa, Shaykh Osama memorized the Qurʾān in childhood and proceeded to master then ten canonical readings of the Qurʾān, receiving Ijāzah from numerous scholars, including the famous head of Egyptian reciters Shaykh Aḥmad ʿĪsā al-Maʿṣarāwī. He is the director of the Islamic Center of Jersey City and vice president of Al-Ghazaly School. He continues to teach the Qurʾān via his website: www.onlineejaza.com.
Quran Literacy Institute 