The people that make up the
Christian Muslim Forum

The Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury
Patron
Christian
The Most Revd Justin Welby is the Christian Muslim Forum’s Founding Patron.
He was ordained in 1992 after an 11-year career in the oil industry. In 2002 he became Canon of Coventry Cathedral, where he jointly led its international reconciliation work. During this time he worked extensively in Africa and the Middle East. He has had a passion for reconciliation and peacemaking ever since. He has served as Dean of Liverpool Cathedral and Bishop of Durham, and is the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. His priorities are the renewal of prayer and the religious life, reconciliation, and evangelism and witness.
Speaking after becoming Archbishop in March 2013, Archbishop Justin said, “I’m excited to support the important work of the Christian Muslim Forum, as Christian-Muslim relations is a key global issue which it is vital to get right – and can have tragic consequences if we don’t.”
Imam Qari M Asim MBE
Imam Qari M Asim MBE
Trustee
Muslim

Qari Asm is a senior Imam at Makkah Mosque in Leeds and Legal Director at global law firm, DLA Piper. Qari is passionate about fostering relations between communities. He is an executive board member of National Council of Imams & Rabbis, and is one of the faith advisors to the Near Neighbours programme. He also acts as a consultant to a number of mosques, institutions, public bodies and agencies.

Rt Revd Paul Hendricks
Rt Revd Paul Hendricks
Trustee
Christian

Bishop Paul is Catholic Auxiliary Bishop with responsibility for the South West of the Southwark Catholic Archdiocese in London. He was ordained by Archbishop Kevin McDonald in February 2006.  He studied for the priesthood at the English College, Rome (1979 – 1985).  He obtained a Licence in Philosophy from the Gregorian University, Rome.  He was ordained priest at Holy Innocents, Orpington in 1984.  His first appointment, in 1985, as an assistant priest was to St Boniface, Tooting. In 1989 he was appointed Philosophy Lecturer and Bursar at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh. His next appointment was as parish priest of Our Lady of Sorrows, Peckham, in 1999. He serves on the Diocesan Finance Committee and is the Diocesan Advisor on New Religious Movements and Cults.

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra
Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra
Trustee
Muslim

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra serves as an imam and scholar in Leicester. He was born in Malawi into a family of Indian origin and emigrated to the UK at the age of 18 to study and settle. He has been trained in classical theology and the traditional sciences of Islam. He holds religious credentials from Daru-`Ulum, Holcombe as well as advanced theological qualifications from Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Shaykh Mogra undertook a postgraduate degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the founder and Principal of Khazinatul-`Ilm, Madaris of Arabic and Muslim Life Studies, in Leicester. He was elected as an Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain in 2008. Prior to that, he was chair of the Council’s Masjid and Community Affairs Committee as well as the Inter Faith Relations Committee, of which he is still the chair. As a local community activist in Leicester and a national leader in the MCB, Shaykh Mogra has been at the forefront in deepening interfaith relations in the UK and around the world. He is chair of Religions for Peace UK, Advisory Board member of the Three Faiths Forum, and a member of the Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace. He continues to serve as a specialist advisor on Muslim affairs to media outlets including the BBC, Sky News, ITN and several newspapers.

The Reverend Canon Anthony Ball
The Reverend Canon Anthony Ball
Trustee
Christian

Anthony Ball serves as Canon Steward and Almoner at Westminster Abbey, having previously been the Rector of Worth in West Sussex and worked at Lambeth Palace.  After studying at the University of Durham, he joined HM Diplomatic Service, enjoying overseas postings in the Middle East and Spain – during which time he was ordained as an Anglican priest. He is a trustee of several charities.

The Rt Revd Dr Toby Howarth
The Rt Revd Dr Toby Howarth
Trustee
Christian

Toby Howarth was born in Kenya and has studied and worked in London, the United States, Pakistan, Oxford, Uganda, Egypt, Birmingham and India. He holds a PhD on Islamic preaching. After serving as Inter Religious Affairs Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was consecrated Bishop of Bradford in 2014. Toby is married to Henriette and they have three daughters

Professor Mona Siddiqui
Professor Mona Siddiqui
Scholar Consultant
Muslim

Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh’s Divinity school in December 2011 as the first person to hold a chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies. She also holds the posts of Assistant Principal for Religion and Society and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to this she worked at Glasgow University directing the Centre for the Study of Islam. Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her most recent publications are, 50 Ideas in Islam (Quercus, 2016), Muslim Christian Encounters 4 volumes, (Routledge, 2016) Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name (Yale UP, 2015), My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey (IB Tauris, 2014), Christians, Muslims and Jesus (Yale University Press, 2013), and The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classical Islamic Law and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2012). She is currently working on writing her Gifford lectures on the theme of human struggle for publication. She has held visiting professorships at several Dutch and American universities including a Humanitas Professorship at Cambridge University in 2014. Currently she is Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, British University in Dubai and Kings College, London.

She is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life. She is a regular commentator in the media, known especially for her appearances on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day. In June 2016, she became a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s award winning The Moral Maze. In 2012, she appeared as a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs and in July 2015, was a guest on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions. She chairs the BBC’s Religious Advisory Committee in Scotland and during 2016 served as chair of the Scotland `Stronger In’ pro Europe campaign. In April 2016, she was invited by the Home Office to lead an independent review of shari`a councils in the UK. She is an elected member of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics as well as the British Medical Associations’ Ethics committee; she is also a member of the Franco-British Council and in November 2016, was invited to join the Robertson Trust trustees. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, holds five honorary doctorates and an honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of Scottish Architects for her contributions to public life. In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for her

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Scholar Consultant
Muslim

Abdal-Hakim Murad’s  profile and work have attracted media coverage both in the Muslim World and the West. Conversant in both traditional Islamic scholarship and Western thought and civilization, Shaykh Murad has made significant contributions on many Islamic topics.

Shaykh Murad is currently the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College, and a doctoral student at Oxford University, where he is studying the relationship between the government and Sufi brotherhoods in the Ottoman Empire. Murad is also the secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust (London), Director of The Anglo-Muslim Fellowship for Eastern Europe, President of the UK Friends of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Director of the Sunna Project, which has published scholarly Arabic editions of the major Sunni Hadith collections.

Shaykh Abdal Hakim is the translator of a number of works, including two volumes from Imam al-Ghazali’s Ihya Ulum al-Din. He gives durus and halaqas from time to time and taught the works of Imam al-Ghazali at the Winter 1995 Deen Intensive Program in New Haven, CT. He appears frequently on BBC Radio and writes occasionally for a number of publications, including The Independent; Q-News, Britain’s premier Muslim Magazine; and Seasons, the semi-academic journal of Zaytuna Institute.
He is also the current Dean of The Cambridge Muslim College.
The Rt Revd Dr Richard Cheetham
The Rt Revd Dr Richard Cheetham
Scholar Consultant
Christian

The Rt Revd Dr Richard Cheetham has been Bishop of Kingston in the Diocese of Southwark since 2002.   He is also Whitelands Professorial Fellow in Christian Theology and Contemporary Issues at the University of Roehampton, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at King’s College, London.

Bishop Richard read Physics and Philosophy at Oxford University and holds a PhD from King’s College, London for his thesis on “The nature and status of religious belief in contemporary Britain (with particular reference to the concept of “truth”) as reflected by acts of collective worship in a sample of Luton schools since the 1988 Education Reform Act”.  He was Anglican Co-Chair of the Christian Muslim Forum from 2010 to 2012, and its Anglican President from 2012 to 2016.  He is also the Diocese of Southwark’s Lead Bishop for inter faith matters, a Patron of the Curriculum for Cohesion, and was involved in the development of “Sharing Perspectives”, St George’s College Jerusalem’s flagship course for people who are influential in inter faith work in the UK and Canada.

Professor Sayyid Milani
Professor Sayyid Milani
President
Muslim

Shia president. Ayatollah Milani has been honoured with a PhD in Islamic Philosophy from Oxford University in 1994, in addition to many academic qualifications from the College of Fiqh in Najaf, the School of Law in Lebanon, Arabic Literature from the University of Baghdad and Professor entitlement from the University of Amman, Jordon. Ayatollah Sayyid Milani has more than forty years experience in teaching Islamic studies. He has published many books in Arabic, Persian and English and he is the Dean of International Colleges for Islamic Studies in London. He is also the imam and spiritual leader of the Imam Khoei Islamic Centre in London. Currently, he is supervising students who are compiling their theses for PhD in Islamic studies. Ayatollah Milani is a Professor of Islamic Law at the Islamic College London and Middlesex University.

Rt Revd Dr Donnett Thomas
Rt Revd Dr Donnett Thomas
President
Christian

Bishop Donnett Thomas was consecrated in July 2003.  She is Senior Pastor at Power of the Living Word Ministries International in London and has Apostolic Covering Churches in Mombasa, Kibwezi, Kitui in Kenya and in Pradesh, India.  Bishop Donnett has a missionary heart and believes it is our Kingdom responsibility to help the poor.  She is experienced and articulate. An international preacher and teacher who has spoken all over the world in Houston, California, New Jersey, Chicago, Antigua, Jamaica, the Philippines, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Botswana.  Bishop Donnett is Chair of Churches Together in South London.

The Rev Trevor Howard
The Rev Trevor Howard
President
Christian

The Rev Trevor Howard is our Free Church President. He is on the Board of the Free Churches Group and is the International Co-ordinator of Churches in Communities International, a network of independent churches, ministries, chaplains and networks in the UK and several nations with mixed Christian/Muslim populations.

He holds a BA (Hons) in Arabic and French with Middle Eastern and European Studies, an MA in Urban Education and an MTh in South Asian Islamic and Christian religion and politics.  He travels regularly in Africa and South Asia.

Trevor is also a member of the Churches Commission on Inter Faith Relations (of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland).

Toufik Kacimi
Toufik Kacimi
President
Muslim
Toufik Kacimi is the CEO of Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park, London, where he participates in community work on education and counselling, as well as providing a mosque. He played a prominent role in bringing together local communities after the attack on worshippers there in June 2017. Toufik Kacimi is also a leading member of Islington Faiths Forum.