Shaykh Dr. Mansur Ali
Profile
Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Mansur Ali is part of a new generation of young British Muslim scholars. He started his preliminary Islamic studies at the Darul Ulooms of Birmingham and Bury, where he completed his studies in 2000 with a grade A distinction. He had the honour of reciting the complete Sahih al-Bukhari to his teacher whilst the other students listened. His studies focused on traditional Islamic sciences and classical Arabic such as Arabic etymology, syntax, philology, literature, and pragmatics and rhetoric; classical Tafsir, Hadith, Hanafi fiqh, classical legal theory, Qur’anic hermeneutics, didactic theology and basic Islamic philosophy.
In 2002, he went to Al-Azhar University (Egypt) where he completed his degree in Hadith studies. At Al-Azhar University, he was introduced to techniques of Hadith research, isnad criticism, history and historiography, different hermeneutical approaches to the Qur’an and Hadith and modern works of Hadith. He later completed an MA in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Manchester and has a PhD specialising in ‘Imam al-Tirmidhi and the role of the Isnad in his Sunan’.
He worked as an Imam and Muslim chaplain at Ashworth high security hospital in Liverpool, where he offered pastoral and spiritual care to patients. Shortly after his PhD, he worked as a research associate at Cardiff University working on the first ever research to be carried on Muslim chaplaincy in the UK alongside Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray (Cardiff University) as well as a Friday prayer khateeb at Darul Isra Mosque. He then took up a post as a post-doctoral fellow at Cambridge Muslim College working alongside Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad (T.J. Winter).
He has co-authored a book on Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy with Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray which is to be published by Ashgate in 2013. He has also edited a hadith text known as Muqaddimat I’la as-Sunan by Shaykh Zafar Ahmad Uthmani to be published by Turath Publishing in 2013. He is currently editing the text of a 40 hadith collection by Imam Ibn Hajar Asqalani called al-Imta' as well as editing the English translation of Imam Tahawi's hadith book called Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar. All to be published by Turath Publishing.
He has lectured in many high profile events both nationally and internationally, and travels extensively as a teacher in the classical peripatetic style. He is currently the Jameel Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cardiff University.