About Us

The Wilaya Trust is a charity dedicated to the preservation, transmission and development of traditional spirituality, knowledges, and arts. Based in Oxford, England, the trust aims to cultivate an approach to education in which the intellectual, physical, and spiritual well-being of individuals is addressed through the art of living and learning in community. The spiritual perspective of the Wilaya Trust is that of Islam, and the Trust draws upon holistic traditions of education to collaborate with others who similarly wish to uphold and spread ethical and responsible cultures of beauty.

Our Mission

We develop an approach to learning in which the intellectual, physical, and spiritual well-being of individuals is cultivated by practising knowledge in community.

To provide holistic educational programmes in Oxford and SE England. We organise classes, workshops, and hands-on learning of crafts and practical skills, in order to revivify timeless perspectives on learning and life.

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To foster attachment to local community. We arrange events and activities that allow people to experience how we flourish most when we are committed to our communities, to the natural order, and to God.

To support other community-based educational programmes. We serve as an educational consultancy that develops models and materials tailored for individual communities' needs throughout the U.K.

Meet Our Team

The Wilaya Trust team brings together professionals with diverse yet complimentary backgrounds and skills, including scholars, academics, educationalists, entrepreneurs, project managers, health specialists, and technology experts.

Teachers

Mawlana Ibrahim Amin

Hifz Director

Mawlana Ibrahim Amin is a traditionally-trained Muslim scholar and hafiz (memorizer) of the Qur'an. He studied the traditional Islamic disciplines in Kuwait, India, and in the UK. He is imam of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, and serves as the director of the Wilaya Trust's hifz (Qur'an memorisation) programme.

Ustadha Reem Elsagher

Tajwid Instructor

Ustadha Reem Elsagher is from Damascus, Syria, where she memorised the Qur'an and studied at Al-Furqan Institute for Sharia and Islamic Studies. She teaches GCSE-level Arabic, and is an instructor in the Quran for students of all ages.

Imam Abrar Mehmood

Tajwid Instructor

Imam Abrar Hussain Mehmood has served as an imam and teacher at a number of public institutions and Islamic schools throughout Oxfordshire for over a decade. He memorised the Qur'an in Leicester, and received degrees and licenses to teach from a number of scholars in the UK, Qatar, Morocco, India, and Pakistan. He is currently specialising in hadith studies and the ten transmitted recitals (qira'at) of the Qur'an.

Shaykh Tanveer Hussain

Instructor

Shaykh Tanveer Hussain studied the Islamic sciences in Syria for eight years, where he learnt with a number of scholars and graduated from Ma’had al-Fath al-Islami. He is an imam at the High Wycombe Mosque, and scholar-in-residence of the Certificate for Islamic Learning (CIL) programme in the city.

Shaykh Thaqib Mahmood

Instructor

Shaykh Thaqib Mahmood is a traditionally-trained Muslim scholar and instructor in Arabic. He has studied the traditional Islamic disciplines in Yemen, Syria, the UK, Mauritania, and Turkey. He currently teaches Arabic at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. He holds a PGDIP in Arabic teaching from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and is completing a Master's degree in linguistics at the same institution.

Ustadh Mansoor Malik

Instructor

Ustadh Mansoor Malik is a professional tutor in mathematics, Arabic and Islamic studies. He studied Arabic and traditional Islamic disciplines in Damascus, Jordan, Yemen, and the UK. He holds a degree in Philosophy from King's College, and an MPhil in Philosophy from the University of Warwick, where his research centred on approaches to knowledge and education. He is currently studying theoretical physics at the University of Nottingham.

Hifz Instructors

Imam Saad Ahmad
Ustadha Yasmine Ahmed
Ustadha Heba Alayyoubi
Ustadha Banan Al-Monlla
Imam Abrar Mehmood
Ustadha Haleema Mulla
Ustadha Reem Elsagher
Ustadha Razan Yasin

Trustees

Dr Muhammad Isa Waley,

MA (Cantab) PhD (London)

Dr Muhammad Isa Waley was Lead Curator for Persian and Turkish Collections at the British Library, London (retired). He is a respected world specialist in manuscript studies, as well as the classical verse and prose literature of Islamic spirituality in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, including that of the famous poet, Jalal al-Din Rumi.

Dr Afifi al-Akiti

MA DPhil (Oxon)

Dr Afifi al-Akiti is a lecturer at the Faculty of Theology, and Lecturer in World Religions at Worcester College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the philosophical writings of Ghazali.

Trust Management

Dr Talal Al-Azem

Director

Dr Talal Al-Azem is a university lecturer in Islamic history and theology, and studied the disciplines of Islamic learning in Syria and Turkey. He has written and lectured on the history and philosophy of Islamic education, alongside work on the history of Muslim jurisprudence, and is the translator of ‘Prayers of Occasions’. He serves as the director of the Trust.

Ms Caroline O'Connor

Operations Manager

Ms Caroline O'Connor is a qualified and experienced primary teacher, with an MSc in Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise. She has been involved in establishing numerous projects in Oxford and has served on the governing body of a number of schools in South East England. Caroline is also the founder of a successful homeschooling collective in Oxford.

Mr Shehzad Najib

Project Manager

Mr Shehzad Najib is a co-founder of Kinteract, a company producing software applications which serve as real-time digital records for a child's development in primary and secondary schools. He has over a decade of experience in the educational and financial sectors for companies such as Pearson's and Barclays.

Dr Claire El Mouden

Project Manager

Dr Claire El Mouden is an evolutionary biologist and interdisciplinary researcher at the University of Oxford. The focus of her work is human sociality, and she is interested in the interface between biology and the social sciences. She studies the effect of leadership on social evolution, social learning, and how our environment affects the social behaviours we perform.