Centre for Islamic Knowledge - CIK

Schedule Update: Synopsis of Muslim History

Please note that Synopsis of Muslim History with Dr. Khurram Khan, originally scheduled for August 15 & 22, has been rescheduled to Sunday, October 18, 2026.

We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to welcoming you in October.

Further program details and registration information are available at:
https://www.cikedu.org/synopsis-muslim-history.html

Synopsis of Muslim History with Dr. Khurram Khan

In this course, Synopsis of Muslim History, Dr. Khurram takes participants on a journey through fourteen centuries of Muslim history, from the passing of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to the modern era. Through a reflective and accessible approach, he explores the major personalities, events, ideas, and civilizations that have shaped the Muslim world. The course aims to provide historical context for understanding the opportunities and challenges facing Muslims today and to inspire a deeper appreciation of our collective heritage.

Saturdays, August 15 & 22 | 8:30 AM–1:30 PM
Centre for Islamic Knowledge | 3150 Ridgeway Dr, Unit 26, Mississauga, ON
Course Fee: $25 (Scholarships available)

Learn More & Register:
https://www.cikedu.org/synopsis-muslim-history.html

About the Instructor:

Dr. Khurram Khan is an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University and a consultant gastroenterologist. He holds a Master's degree in Epidemiology and has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications. His research has focused on digestive diseases, and he has led numerous clinical and academic research initiatives in this field.

Beyond medicine, Dr. Khurram has dedicated decades to Muslim community development, youth engagement, and Islamic education. He has served as President of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) at both the University of Waterloo and Western University and has held numerous regional and national leadership roles in youth work and da'wah. A student of Islamic knowledge, community activist, and educator, he currently serves on the Board of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), is the faculty advisor to the McMaster MSA, and regularly delivers khutbahs and lectures in the community.

An award-winning teacher, researcher, and mentor, Dr. Khurram is passionate about making complex ideas accessible and relevant to diverse audiences.

Synopsis of Muslim History with Dr. Khurram Khan

In this course, Synopsis of Muslim History, Dr. Khurram takes participants on a journey through fourteen centuries of Muslim history, from the passing of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to the modern era. Through a reflective and accessible approach, he explores the major personalities, events, ideas, and civilizations that have shaped the Muslim world. The course aims to provide historical context for understanding the opportunities and challenges facing Muslims today and to inspire a deeper appreciation of our collective heritage.

Saturdays, August 15 & 22 | 8:30 AM–1:30 PM
Centre for Islamic Knowledge | 3150 Ridgeway Dr, Unit 26, Mississauga, ON
Course Fee: $25 (Scholarships available)

Learn More & Register:
https://www.cikedu.org/synopsis-muslim-history.html

About the Instructor:

Dr. Khurram Khan is an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University and a consultant gastroenterologist. He holds a Master's degree in Epidemiology and has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications. His research has focused on digestive diseases, and he has led numerous clinical and academic research initiatives in this field.

Beyond medicine, Dr. Khurram has dedicated decades to Muslim community development, youth engagement, and Islamic education. He has served as President of the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) at both the University of Waterloo and Western University and has held numerous regional and national leadership roles in youth work and da'wah. A student of Islamic knowledge, community activist, and educator, he currently serves on the Board of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), is the faculty advisor to the McMaster MSA, and regularly delivers khutbahs and lectures in the community.

An award-winning teacher, researcher, and mentor, Dr. Khurram is passionate about making complex ideas accessible and relevant to diverse audiences.

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Ahmad Snobar as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. Ahmad Snobar is an Associate Professor of Hadith Studies at İstanbul 29 Mayıs University. A specialist in the history and methodology of Hadith transmission, his research focuses on the development of early Islamic scholarly networks and the relationship between authority, politics, and knowledge production in the formative centuries of Islam.

He is the author of several important works, most notably his study on the historical transmission of Hadith from the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through the early generations to Imam al-Bukhari, as well as his recent book examining the interplay between political power and the transmission of Hadith.

Learn more about the program at: https://www.cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Safaruk Chowdhury as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. Safaruk Chowdhury is the Academic Director of the Centre for Islamic Knowledge. He read Philosophy at King’s College London, where he also earned the Associate of King’s College (AKC) award. He then travelled to Cairo to study the traditional Islamic Studies curriculum at Al-Azhar University. Returning to the UK, he completed his MA with distinction at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His doctoral research at SOAS examined the eminent Sufi hagiographer and theoretician Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) and was later published as A Sufi Apologist of Nishapur: The Life and Thought of Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2019).

Dr. Chowdhury has authored numerous academic articles in Islamic philosophy and theology, particularly in the areas of ethics, metaphysics, logic, and epistemology. He is also the translator and editor of A Treatise on Disputation and Argument: Risālat al-Ādāb fī ʿIlm al-Baḥth wa’l-Munāẓara (London: Dār al-Nicosia, 2020), a bilingual critical edition of the Ottoman scholar Aḥmad b. Khalīl Taşköprüzāde's treatise on the theory and etiquette of disputation. His most recent monograph, Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil (New York and Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2021), represents the first sustained treatment of the subject in Islamic Studies through the lens of analytic theology.

Building on his work in Islamic epistemology and analytic theology, Dr. Chowdhury co-edited, with Ramon Harvey, Islamic Analytic Epistemology: Critical Debates (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Bringing together fifteen contributing scholars, the volume places classical and contemporary Islamic approaches to knowledge in sustained dialogue with analytic epistemology and helps define the emerging field of analytic Islamic epistemology.
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Dr. Chowdhury also served as the lead researcher for the Beyond Foundationalism: New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation in collaboration with Cambridge Muslim College and the Aziz Foundation. The project advanced new trajectories in Islamic epistemology and analytic theology. He has previously served as a lecturer at both SOAS and Birkbeck, University of London.
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Dr. Chowdhury holds several academic and editorial positions. He is Executive Editor of both the Journal of Islamic Philosophy and the Ihya’ Journal of Islamic Thought, a Research Scholar at the Ibn Rushd Centre for Excellence and Research, a Lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College, a Senior Instructor at the Whitethread Institute, and Chair of the Islamic Literary Society.

Learn more about the program at: https://www.cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Merve Özaykal as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. Merve Özaykal is an Associate Professor of Islamic Law at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Theology. She specializes in Islamic jurisprudence with a particular focus on Islamic bioethics (bio-fiqh), legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), and contemporary legal issues, especially at the intersection of medicine and Islamic law.

Dr. Özaykal completed her undergraduate and master’s studies in Islamic Law at Ankara University, followed by a second master’s degree in the history of medicine and ethics at Istanbul University. She earned her PhD in Islamic Law from Sakarya University with a dissertation examining bodily autonomy and organ transplantation in Islamic law.

Her academic training also includes international research experience as a visiting scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, where she further developed her expertise in bioethics. She has additionally pursued advanced studies in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, engaging with both classical and contemporary Islamic scholarly traditions.

Dr. Özaykal’s research explores critical questions in medical ethics, human dignity, and the application of Islamic legal principles to modern biomedical challenges, including organ transplantation, gender and medical anomalies, and minority fiqh contexts. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, and she serves on editorial boards and as a reviewer for several scholarly publications in Islamic studies.
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In addition to her teaching and research, she is actively involved in academic initiatives in Türkiye, including coordination roles in educational and research programs, and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions on the ethical and legal dimensions of emerging medical technologies within the Islamic tradition.

Learn more about the program at: https://www.cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

We are honoured to welcome M. Owais Khan as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Owais will be presenting on "How to Do Islamic Political Theory".

Owais Khan is a senior fellow and lecturer at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Co-Founder and Director of the Foundation for the Study of Science and Thought (BILDEV), and a PhD candidate in International Political Theory at the University of St. Andrews. Previously, he served as a lecturer at the UN Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul. He has an MA in Political Philosophy and an M.Phil in Islamic Studies. His philosophical research is concerned with the political theology of sovereignty and its relationship to prophecy, while his historical research focuses on anticolonial movements and the formation of early modern political theory.

Learn more about the program at: https://www.cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

New CIK Talk Upload

Rising to the Challenge of AI: Technology Sovereignty, the Ummah, and the Individual

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping economies, education, governance, knowledge production, and global power structures. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life, Muslim communities face an urgent question: how should we respond to a technology that will affect our institutions, scholarship, children, and access to knowledge?

In this timely CIK Talk, Dr. Waleed Kadous, a leading AI researcher with more than 25 years of experience, examines AI through the lens of the Qur’an, the Prophetic tradition, and Islamic intellectual history. Dr. Kadous founded Google’s Android Location and Sensing team, led AI initiatives at Uber and Canva, and is the creator of Ansari, an Islamic AI assistant, and the AI for Imams program.

The lecture explores AI as a defining meta-technology of our age, one that is transforming multiple fields simultaneously while raising urgent questions around ethics, technology sovereignty, institutional preparedness, and the future of the Muslim community.

Watch the lecture:
https://www.cikedu.org/rising-to-the-challenge-of-ai.html

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. Ezzat will be presenting on "Order, Disorder, and Chaos: How to Read the World and Understand Societies."

Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Institute of the Alliance of Civilizations at Ibn Haldun University (IHU) in Istanbul, Turkey. She also teaches in the Departments of Political Science and Sociology at IHU. For nearly 30 years, she taught political theory at Cairo University. She was also an adjunct professor at the American University in Cairo (2006- 2013). She spent two years (2014-2015) at the Civil Society and Human Security Unit at the London School of Economics (LSE) as a visiting fellow before moving to Istanbul – where she is currently based – in 2016. Her academic writings and teaching cover a wide range of topics, including classic and modern Western political thought, Islamic political theory, women and politics, global civil society, urban politics, cities and citizenship, and Middle East politics. Besides her teaching and writing, she co-established a Diploma in Public Policy and Child Rights in 2010, a European Commission-funded project coordinated by four Arab and four European universities. For that effort, she was awarded the Prize for Outstanding Support of German-Egyptian Collaboration in Science and Innovation.

Since 2015, Dr. Raouf Ezzat has supervised and introduced the full translation of Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity series into Arabic. She also translated Ziauddin Sardar's book Mecca: The Sacred City into Arabic. Her latest work is a research paper on the "Project on the Future of Human Rights in the Arab world" titled, "The Human Rights Movement and the Islamist: The Paths of Convergence and Divergence" with the Arab Reform Initiative/Paris, and forthcoming chapter titled, "Re-imagining Egypt: The State of War" in a book titled, Contemporary Thought in the Middle East (Routledge 2021). Her current research focuses on the reconfigurations of space in Egyptian urban planning and urban politics, as well as the recent rise of Egyptian Ultranationalism.

Learn more about the program and apply: https://cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Recep Şentürk as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. Şentürk will be teaching the Science of Civilization (ʿIlm al-ʿUmrān): Reading Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah.

Dr. Recep Şentürk is the Dean of the College of Islamic Studies at HBKU. He was the former Founding President of Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul (2017–2021). Dr. Şentürk holds a PhD from Columbia University’s Department of Sociology, and specializes in Civilization Studies, Sociology, and Islamic Studies with a focus on social networks, human rights, and modernization in the Muslim world.

​He served as a researcher at the Center for Islamic Studies (İSAM) in Istanbul, and as Founding Director of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute. He is Head of the International Ibn Khaldun Society, and has a seat on the editorial boards of multiple academic journals. He is listed among the world’s 500 most influential Muslims in the annual publication The Muslim 500.
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Dr. Şentürk has publications in English, Turkish, and Arabic. His works have been translated into such languages as French, Japanese, Malayalam, Urdu, and Spanish. His publications include Adamiyyah: I Am Therefore I Have Rights and Duties, Semiotics of Nature; Recharging Nature with Meaning for Environmental Ethics and Action, Futuwwah: Noble Character, Malcolm X: The Struggle For Human Rights, Comparative Theories and Methods between Uniplexity and Multiplexity, Narrative Social Structure: Hadith Transmission Network 610-1505, and Modernization and Societal Sciences in the Muslim World.

Learn more about the program and apply: https://cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html

We are honoured to welcome Dr. Talal al-Azem as part of the distinguished faculty for the 2026 CIK Summer Academic Intensive at the Süleymaniye Madrasa in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Dr. al-Azem will be presenting on Navigating Knowledge in the Modern Age: Reflections on the Place of the Islamic Religious Sciences in the Educational Journey of Contemporary Students.

Dr. Talal Al-Azem is the Mohammed Noah Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and the Islamic Centre Lecturer in Classical Islam in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Boğaziçi University and previously served as Academic Director of Cambridge Muslim College. He studied the traditional Islamic sciences in Syria and Turkey and has written and lectured extensively on the history and philosophy of Islamic education, as well as the history of Muslim jurisprudence. He is the author of Rule-Formulation and Binding Precedent in the Madhhab-Law Tradition (Brill, 2017). Dr. Al-Azem holds a PhD and MSt from the University of Oxford and a BA in History and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan.

Learn more about the program and apply: https://cikedu.org/summer-intensive.html