SHAYKH FARAZ RABBANI

Shaykh Faraz completed his Bachelor's in Economics & Commerce in May 1997. While in Canada, Shaykh Faraz was involved with various organizations and projects, including founding and running the monthly The Muslim Voice and acting as the Vice-President of the University of Toronto MSA from 1994-1996. While in Toronto, he was involved in various Islamic study circles and educational programs, including those of Shaykh Talal Ahdab, Shaykh Faisal Abd al-Razzaq, and Shaykh Muhammad Zahid Abu Ghudda.

After graduation, Shaykh Faraz traveled with his family to Damascus, Syria, to formally seek Islamic knowledge. In Damascus, he studied Arabic, Aqida, Mantiq, Hanafi Fiqh, Shafi'I Fiqh, Usul al-Fiqh, and Hadith with a number of scholars. In the Summer of 2000, he moved to Amman, Jordan. Upon moving to Jordan, his teachers advised him to focus on teaching what he had covered, for which they gave him encouragement and permission, and to continue his personal research and study. He has published a number of books, including The Absolute Essentials of Islam [White Thread Press]. He also runs the blog Seeker's Digest and has a regular column in Islamica Magazine. As the founder of the original Hanafi fiqh list, Shaykh Faraz has been involved with SunniPath since its beginning. At SunniPath, an online Islamic academy, Shaykh Faraz teaches fiqh, aqeeda, and other subjects. He also serves as Director of SunniPath's Answers Service. He now lives in Toronto with his wife and three children.

SHAYKH ZAHIR BACCHUS

Shaykh Zahir immigrated to Canada with his family from Guyana when he was five years old and attended Islamic classes in Toronto from a very early age. After high school he completed a degree in Zoology with a minor in history at the University of Toronto. During his years on campus he was actively involved with the Muslim Student Association assisting in organizing many important events such as hosting the Mayor of Sarajevo during the tumultuous years of genocide against Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

After attending a one-week Deen Intensive Program in Connecticut in 1995 Shaykh Zahir returned to Toronto consumed with the desire to go on a rihla in search of sacred knowledge. In 1996 he said goodbye to his family and friends in Toronto and left for Amman, Jordan to study Arabic. The following year he enrolled in the Arabic program at the University of Damascus and it is in Damascus that he would spend the next six years of uninterrupted study. In the years he spent in Damascus, Shaykh Zahir had the blessing of meeting and sitting in the company of some of the premier scholars of Damascus, learning Hanafi fiqh, aqida (science of beliefs), mantiq (logic), usul (critical intellectualism), hadith, and tafsir.

Currently Shaykh Zahir is one of the Imams at the Brampton Sunnatul Islamic Association as well as the founder/director of the Lote Tree Foundation (an educational initiative).

USTADHA SAIEMA DIN SYED

Ustadha Saiema was born in Toronto, Canada to parents of Pakistani origin. She attended, while doing her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, fiqh classes taught by Shaikh Talal Ahdab and attended the first Deen Intensive program in Toronto in 1997. She graduated in 1997 from the University of Toronto with an Honours degree in Psychology.

She then left for Damascus to study Arabic and the Islamic Sciences along with her husband, Shaikh Zahir Bacchus. Over the course of six years, she studied the science of Tajweed, Shaf'i fiqh, Arabic grammar, 'Aqeeda, and Methodology of Hadith. She studied under some of the distinguished scholars of Damascus attaining written permission to teach the Islamic sciences.

After completing her studies, she returned back to the University of Toronto and completed the Bachelor of Education program, while teaching various halaqahs in the city. She is currently residing in Brampton with her family where she continues to teach the Islamic Sciences as well as being a full-time teacher in the public school board. 

SHAYKH RAMZY AJEM

Shaykh Abu Shamsudin Ramzy ibn Mahmoud Ajem is of Tunisian descent and was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. In 1995, he left Canada to begin his Islamic studies in Damascus, Syria. He completed the two year pre-college program with honors at Abu-Nur Islamic Institute of Syria. While in Damascus, he had the honor to meet and study with a number of scholars including Sh. Ramadan al-Bouti, Sh. Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, Sh. Abd al-Rahman Kharsa, Sh. Nur al-din Ittir, Sh. Adib Kallas, Sh. Farid al-Jazairi, Sh. Abdul Mu`iz al-Nafti, Sh. Muhammad Kaylash, Sh. Mu'min Al-Annan, and Sh. Jihad Hashim Brown.

In pursuit of the classical Islamic education, Shaykh Ramzy traveled to west Africa, where he was amongst the first westerners to be accepted by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments of Morocco to study at the Ancient Madrasah of Tanalat in the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco (Madrassat al-Hajj Muhammad al-Habib). As a full-time student at the school, he studied some of the known texts of the various Islamic sciences under its current director and teacher, Sidi Sheikh al-Haj Muhammad al-Ghali, who is one of the foremost students of its very founder: the famous Sheikh, al-Zahid, al-Wali, and Mujahid Sidi Muhammad al-Habib al-Susi (Allah have mercy on him). After completing basic texts in Grammar, Morphology, Aqida, and Fiqh, he received permission from his teacher Sidi Sheikh al-Haj Muhammad al-Ghali to teach in these fundamental fields of sacred knowledge.

Back home, he is continuing his studies with Shaykh Talal Ahdab, may Allah protect them all and benefit us by their baraka and knowledge. Shaykh Ramzy founded, directs, and teaches at Dar al-Marifa, an institution that offers homeschooled children weekday classes in Arabic and Islamic studies. He also is a part-time teacher at Kitab Academy, where he directs its Arabic and Islamic curriculum. In addition, he has volunteered at a Toronto Deen Intensive, Camp Nur, the Muslim Student Association in Toronto and Montreal, and the local mosque Imdad al-Islam. Shaykh Ramzy currently lives in Toronto with his wife and four children.

SHAYKH JAMAL ZAHABI

Born in 1957 in Lebanon, Shaykh Jamal Zahabi began his traditional Islamic educational training at the age of 12 when he entered Mahad al-Fath, a rigorous madrassah in Damascus, Syria. After spending 6 years there he went on to complete a degree at the prestigious Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, Egypt. He later did his Masters degree at the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he studied with Sheikh Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah (rahimahullah). His Masters thesis was in the sciences of hadith with a particular emphasis on the work of Imam Al-Firyabi. Sheikh Jamal moved to Canada in 1989 and was the Imam of the Cambridge Mosque from 1990 to 1994. He also served as Imam of the Dorval Mosque in Montreal.

Sheikh Jamal has studied with some of the leading scholars (ulama) of the Levant including: Sheikh Abd al-Razzak al-Halabi (a master of jurisprudence and the sciences of recitation), Sheikh Saleh Farfour, Sheikh Mahmud Ranqusi, Sheikh Adeeb Kallas, Sheikh Abu Sulaiman al-Zabibi, Sheikh Abu Hamid Qattabi and Sheikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din among others. He has conducted circles of knowledge, Rihlas and Deen Intensive Programs in many locations including Toronto, Trinidad, Guyana, Fez (Morocco), Birmingham (UK), New Mexico, New York and at the Zaytuna Institute in California. He is presently the Imam of the Meadowvale Islamic Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.

He has obtained ijazas (certification to teach) in the Islamic Sciences of the Qur'an (including tajweed), Hadith, Fiqh, Aqidah, Seerah, Islamic poetry and others.

CBC Documentary the conversion of Sister Salma featuring Shaykh Jamal

SHAYKH TALAL AHDAB

Shaykh Talal is regarded as one of the main teachers of the Islamic sciences in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). For the last 15 years he has been conducting classes in both English and Arabic across the GTA.

His classes are commonly held in mosques, Islamic centers and university campuses and are geared for both specialists and general seekers of wisdom.

His students include western seekers of knowledge as well as numerous Muslim activists and community leaders.