Pearls of the Qur’an May 11-13 2018 , Hyatt Regency 1800 Presidents St, Reston, VA 20190

Mokhtar Maghraoui

Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui is one of the most well renowned scholars in North America and is a foundation scholar for Al-Madina Institute. Originally from Algeria, he is thoroughly versed in the Islamic sciences and holds a doctorate joined between the fields of physics and engineering. [more]

Zainab Alwani

Dr. Zainab Alwani is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the Howard University School of Divinity. She is an Islamic scholar, researcher, and community activist. In addition to being the first female jurist to serve on the board for the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), Dr. Alwani currently serves as the Vice President of the FCNA. Her research focuses on Quranic studies, Islamic jurisprudence, the relationship between civil and religious law in the area of family and gender, comparative religions, and inter-religious dialogue. [more]

Yasir Fahmy

Shaykh Yasir began the study of Arabic and Islamic Sciences in his high school years under the guidance of local teachers. At the age of seventeen, he traveled to Amman, where he spent a year studying at the Islamic University of Jordan. He returned to the US and completed a Bachelor’s of Science from Rutgers University. After working in corporate America for three years in finance, he returned to the Middle East and enrolled in the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo. [more]

Mohamed Magid

Imam Mohammed Magid is originally from Sudan and studied at the hands of his father and other notable scholars, gaining ijazas in several disciplines.

Hassan Lachheb

Shaykh Hassan has extensively studied several disciplines including Principles of Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh), Arabic Grammar, Philology, and Literature. He has also received many ijazaat (licenses to teach) from prominent scholars in Hadith, Comparative Jurisprudence (fiqh), and the Sciences of Quran. He has studied under several of the foremost Islamic scholars in Morocco. [more]

Yahya Rhodus

Shaykh Yahya Rhodus was born in Kansas City, Missouri. At the age of 19, he embraced Islam in Santa Clara, California. He began his study of Islam with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and visiting Mauritanian scholars such as Shaykh Khatri wuld Baybba and Shaykh Abdullah wuld Ahmadna. In 1998, Ustadh Yahya traveled to Mauritania to pursue a full-time course of study, where he learned from some of Mauritania's greatest scholars, including the distinguished, Murabit al-Hajj. He also spent an interim period in Damascus, Syria where he received formal education in the Arabic language, grammar, and Qur’anic recitation. [more]

Moutasem Atiya

Moutasem Atiya has been actively involved in the Metropolitan DC communities through classes, speaking engagements, and Friday khutbahs on a regular basis for the past 10 years. [more]

Zaynab Mansour Ansari

Zaynab Ansari spent a decade studying Farsi, Arabic, and traditional Islam in the Middle East, graduating from Abu Nour Institute in Damascus. Upon returning to the United States, she completed undergraduate degrees in history and Middle Eastern Studies at Georgia State University and subsequently pursued graduate coursework in world history. She is a contributor to various non-profit Islamic educational portals, including SeekersHub and Lamppost Productions. She currently serves as an instructor at Tayseer Seminary which recently launched a one-year intensive in Islamic Studies under the leadership of Shaykh Hassan Lachheb, scholar-in-residence for the Muslim Community of Knoxville. [more]

Ali Tos

Hassan Saleh

Shaykh Hassan Saleh is originally from Egypt. He is a graduate of the college of Quran Recitations and its Sciences in Al-Azhar University. He was the Imam and Quran mentor at Dar-Addawa Masjid in New York from 2004 through 2010. He is currently the Imam and Quran instructor at the Islamic Education Center in New Jersey.

Jonathan Brown

Jonathan Brown is the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and he is the Associate Director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. He is also a scholar at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. Dr. Brown has studied and conducted research in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, South Africa, India, Indonesia and Iran.

Dawud Walid

Dawud Walid is the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), a chapter of America’s largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for Muslims.

Sami Catovic

A lawyer and PHD candidate in Religion, Sami Catovic has been an active speaker and contributing member in many leading American Muslim community organizations.

Ieasha Prime

Ieasha Prime is a traditional Islamically trained educator, activist and public speaker. She studied Arabic and Quran at the Fajr Institute followed by general Islamic studies in Cairo, Egypt. After two years in Egypt, she moved to Hadramaut, Yemen and enrolled in Dar al Zahra, an Islamic University for Women. There she studied Aqeedah, Quran, Hadith, Arabic, Jurisprudence (Fiqh), Islamic law, Purification of the Heart and other religious related learning.

Muhammad Mendes

Muhammad Mendes was born in the United States and raised in both the US and in Nigeria. At the age of 17, he embraced Islam after a life changing journey to Israel. While at Morehouse College and later at the Ohio State University, he pursued a BA in Arabic and began studying the classical sciences of Islam with scholars from various countries around the United States, among them were Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Shaykh Muhammad Shareef, Dr. Antar ibn Standford Smith, Shaykh Nuh Keller, Ustath Ahmad Abdur-Rahman, Ustath Hamidou Taal, and Ustath Amr Khalifa.

Erhan Mete

Shaykh Erhan Mete is the imam of the Eyup Sultan Mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. The Eyüp Sultan Mosque is situated in the Eyüp district of Istanbul, outside the city walls near the Golden Horn. The present building dates from the beginning of the 19th century. The mosque complex includes a mausoleum marking the spot where Eyüp al-Ansari, the standard-bearer and friend of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, is buried here.

Riad Saloojee

Riad Saloojee graduated and taught in an Islamic seminary in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a lawyer by training and worked in the field of civil rights advocacy. Currently, he teaches and translates, and is the oldest student of a Qur’an memorization institute trying desperately to keep up with his more youthful peers.