Dr. Yakoob Ahmed
Dr. Yakoob Ahmed is currently an Assistant Professor at Istanbul University’s Ilahiyat (Theology) department as well as a researcher at the Institute of Islamic Studies (ISAMER) at Istanbul University. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Languages and Cultures, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) - University of London. He also graduated from the same institution with a Master’s degree in Near and Middle East Studies, focusing on Ottoman history and Turkish politics. His research focuses are Late Ottoman History, Muslim intellectual thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Islamic constitutionalism, nation-state construction, ulema history of the Late Ottoman state, identity, and collective memory construction. Dr. Ahmed is also a regular contributor for Middle East Eye and TRT World where he has written about several subjects.
Dr. Jaan Islam
Dr. Jaan Islam is an accomplished scholar in Islamic Studies, specializing in early Islamic history and political thought. He has researched and taught at several universities, including the University of Oxford and King's College, London. He also teaches Prophetic biography (sīrah) and Islamic history at Mishkah University, based in Texas. Dr. Islam’s recent publications include his book entitled Islam and the State in Ibn Taymiyya: Translation and Analysis (Routledge 2022). His forthcoming book project examines the premodern origins of divine sovereignty in classical Islamic sciences.
Abdelrahman Mahmoud
Abdelrahman Mahmoud is currently pursuing his doctorate in Ottoman history at Harvard University. His doctoral research project examines the intellectual and institutional links between the Ottoman legal system and the translation movement in early modern Ottoman Egypt. In addition to Ottoman history, the broad scope of Abdelrahman’s research encompasses the history of Islamic law, early modern Inner Asia, and the Mongol-Timurid empire. His teaching background as a teaching assistant at Harvard, however, covers historical subjects as broad as the history of Zionism, the British empire, and international history in the 20th century.
Dr. Behar Sadriu
Behar Sadriu is an Assistant Professor in International Relations and International Public Policy in the UCL Department of Political Science. He has published on a wide range of topics analysing the international politics of the post-Ottoman world and international relations theories, including debates on security, identity and foreign policy; a focus on narrative and critical approaches also characterises my work. His research has been featured in both peer-reviewed journals and policy reports, including for the World Bank and the UK’s House of Lords.
Dr. Noha Hussein
Noha Hussein is an independent researcher with a Ph.D. in Architecture from the School of Architecture, Design, and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her doctoral research explored the role of Quranic inscriptions in mosque architecture, with a particular focus on the "West." She also holds a Master of Science in Architecture from Cairo University, where her research examined the urban and residential mobility of Syrians in Egypt after 2011, as well as the characteristics of their neighborhoods. Noha has contributed to various research and publications on mosque architecture, including a project that focused on developing an urban, architectural, and jurisprudential guide for mosque design. She is currently pursuing a postgraduate diploma in Arabic Manuscript Studies, further expanding her expertise in historical and architectural scholarship.
M. Owais Khan
A senior fellow and lecturer at The Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University. Phd Candidate in International Political Theory at the University of St. Andrews. Previously he served as a lecturer at UN Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul. He has an MA in Political Philosophy and an M.Phil in Islamic Studies. His philosophical research is concerned with the political theology of sovereignty and its relationship to prophecy along with his historical research in anticolonial movements and the formation of early modern political theory.
Dr. Mohammed Sinan Siyech
Dr. Mohammed Sinan Siyech is a lecturer in politics at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He completed his doctoral degree from the Islamic and Middle East Studies Department at the University of Edinburgh and is also a non-resident associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He has previously taught politics at King’s College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) and the University of Edinburgh. He has worked in several think tanks across the world and was previously a senior researcher at Equi (London) and the Institute for Security Dialogue (London) as well as a senior analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore and has contributed to many others globally. Sinan has written and spoken for more than a decade on issues pertaining to politics, foreign policy, security and religion in South Asia, the Middle East and the West. Sinan has also worked with various grassroots Muslim and Non-Muslim charity organisations in India and the UK.
Nourelhoda Hussein
Nourelhoda is a Ph.D. student at the School of Architecture, Design, and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University, UK. She holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University. Additionally, she earned a Master of Human Sciences in Sociology and Anthropology from the Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research focuses on representation and the postcolonial discourses of mosque architecture and aesthetics.
