11 Facts About Afifi al-Akiti

Afifi al-Akiti is the Islamic Centre Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, and is a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.

Afifi al-Akiti is the first Malay to be appointed to such a position in this university.

Afifi al-Akiti has received widespread media recognition across the globe.

In 2010, Afifi al-Akiti was appointed Privy Councillor to the State of Perak, Malaysia, by the Crown Prince of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah.

Afifi al-Akiti is listed in The 500 Most Influential Muslims since 2010.

In 2009, along with Professor Muhammad Abdel Haleem and the IIIT, Afifi al-Akiti was shortlisted for the Annual UK Muslim Awards, in one of its 15 coveted Awards for Excellence, the Allama Iqbal Award for Creativity in Islamic Thought.

In 2011, Afifi al-Akiti was awarded the Darjah Paduka Mahkota Perak, the Malaysian equivalent to the British CBE.

Afifi al-Akiti, who comes from Malaysia, is trained as a theologian and philologist in both the Islamic and Western traditions: educated originally at the feet of the ulema of the Muslim world, he subsequently received a First Class degree in Scholastic philosophy and the History of science from the Queen's University Belfast, where he was awarded various scholarships to read for his Masters and Doctoral degrees at Oxford University.

Afifi al-Akiti completed his DPhil in Medieval Arabic Philosophy from Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar in 2008.

Afifi al-Akiti's findings are based on a survey of nearly 50 medieval Arabic manuscripts.

On 23 July 2005, just days after the London bombings, Afifi al-Akiti wrote Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians, the foreword of which was described by Gibril Haddad as a "fatwa" or a "response by a qualified Muslim scholar against the killing of civilians".