AMI Faculty
Biography
Shaykh Arif Abdul Hussain founded Al-Mahdi Institute in 1993 and currently serves as its Director and as a Senior Lecturer in Legal Theory and Philosophy.
Shaykh Arif began his seminary education at the Madrassa al-Sayyid al-Khūʾī in London from which he graduated in 1988. He continued his seminary studies in Qom between 1989 and 1993 during which time he also had the opportunity to study privately under some of the leading scholars of Qom. Upon returning to the UK, after founding AMI, he continued his advanced studies (dars al-khārij) under Ayatollah Hussain Amini. He was awarded an ijāza of ijtihād from both Ayatollah Hussain Amini and Ayatollah Professor Sayyid Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad.
He is the author of the Islam and God-Centricity series which presents the essential message of Islam through a fresh re-evaluation of religion and human purpose. In addition to these works, he has authored and translated numerous other books and articles. He is currently working on a translation of the second volume of al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr famous work of legal theory Durūs fī ʿilm al-uṣūl, having translated the first volume in 2003.
He is the author and translator of several other works and a prolific public speaker to Muslim communities around the world. He has previously taught at Madrassa al-Sayyid al-Khūʾī, the seminary of Qom, and the Islamic College, London.
- Lecturer, Al-Mahdi Institute – Postgraduate Islamic Legal Studies, Philosophy, Theology, and Spirituality
Books:
- Islam and God-Centricity: Discovering God. Birmingham: Sajjadiyya Press, 2023.
- Islam and God-Centricity: Plurality and Mutability of Religion. Birmingham: Sajjadiyya Press, 2022.
- Islam and God-Centricity: Examining the Articles of Faith. Birmingham: Sajjadiyya Press, 2020.
- Islam and God-Centricity: Reassessing Fundamental Theological Assumptions. Birmingham: Sajjadiyya Press, 2019.
- Islam and God-Centricity: A Theological Basis for Human Liberation. Birmingham: Sajjadiyya Press, 2017.
- Islam aur Markaziyyat-ilahi (Urdu translation of Islam and God-Centricity: Reassessing Fundamental Theological Assumptions), trans. by Mohammad Khalid. Birmingham: AMI Press, 2022.
- Islam aur khuda-markaziyyat (Urdu translation of Islam and God-Centricity: A Theological Basis for Human Liberation), trans. by Mohammad Khalid. Birmingham: AMI Press, 2022.
Articles:
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The conflict between the Actual and Apparent Regulations – Part 1: The Theoretical Foundations of Uṣūl al-Fiqh and the Uṣūlī Resolutions’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The conflict between the Actual and Apparent Regulations – Part 2: ‘The Solution of the “Existential Framework”’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘A Functional Interpretation of Zakāt and the Inclusion of Contemporary Taxation as Its Legitimate Form’, in The Efficacy of Financial Structures for Islamic Taxes and Dues: Proceedings of the 7th AMI Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop, 4-5th July, 2019, ed. Wahid M. Amin (Birmingham: AMI Press, 2020), 8-32;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The Existential Perspective on the Meaning and Implication of Impure Substances within Shīʿī Jurisprudential Discourse’, in The Regulations of Purity and Impurity in Islam: Proceedings of the 8th AMI Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop, 2-3rd July, 2020, ed. Hashim Bata (Birmingham: AMI Press, 2022), 79-110;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The Primacy of the Freedoms of Thought and Expression within the Existential Framework: Implications on Sharīʿa Regulations, Rights and Freedoms’, in Free Speech, Scholarly Critique and the Limits of Expression in Islam: Proceedings of the 9th AMI Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop, 1-2nd July, 2021, ed. Liyakat Takim (Birmingham: AMI Press, 2022), 10-39;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The Existential Perspective on ‘God’s Bestowal of Faḍl upon Men and Its Implications on Qiwāma’, in Islam and the Institution of Marriage: Legal and Sociological Approaches, ed. Katherine Lemons and Laurens de Rooij (Birmingham: AMI Press, 2023), 9-32;
- Arif Abdul-Hussain, 'Islamic Normativity Regarding Brain Death’, in Organ Donation in Islam: The Interplay of Jurisprudence, Ethics, and Society (2022): 99-128;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, A Comparison between the Judicial Precepts of Autonomy and ‘Lack of Harm’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain, 'Ensoulment and the Prohibition of Abortion in Islam’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain and Hashim Bata, ‘Approaches to Female Covering in Sharia’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain and Hashim Bata, ‘Approaches to Supplication (duʿāʾ)’,
- Arif Abdul Hussain and Hashim Bata, ‘Approaches to Music in Sharia’
- Arif Abdul Hussain and Riaz Walji, 'An Examination of the Authenticity and Sharia Status of the Third Segment of Ziyāra ʿĀshūraʾ al- Mashhūra’
- Arif Abdul Hussain, 'The Pre-Worldly Existence of Self-Actualising Individuated Human Souls’, in TBP;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, ‘The Existential Perspective on the Regulative Verses (Āyāt al-Aḥkām) of the Qurʾān’, in TBP;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, 'An Existential Reading of Ibn ʿArabī and Mullā Ṣadrā on the Nature of Reality: Differences and Reconcilability’ in TBP;
- Arif Abdul Hussain, 'An Existential Reading of the ‘Absolute’ and ‘Qualified’ Regulations’ (Forthcoming)
- Co-Director of the Centre for Intra-Muslim Studies (CIMS)
- Member of the International Centre for Collective Ijtihad (ICCI)
- Founder & member of the Centre for Islamic Decrees and Doctrines (CIDD)
Recent Contributrions
Explore the latest contributions to Islamic thought by Shaykh Arif Abdulhussain.
