Shah Shahidullah Faridi

In this 24th instalment of our popular 'Paradigms of Leadership' lecture series, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad explores the untold story of European Islam in the life and times of Cosantino of Paros: a Greek convert to Islam who was interrogated by the inquisition in Malta in 1638.

After enduring imprisonment for his resistance to French rule in Senegal, Shaykh Ahmadou Bamba went on to establish the holy city of Touba in modern day Senegal. Writing extensively on Islamic matters to strengthen the faith of the Senegalese people, a legacy which remains to this day.  In this instalment of our Paradigms of Leadership Lecture Series, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad explores how this 19th century scholar kept the Islamic tradition alive in Senegal despite great internal and external challenges. 

Muslim history brims with detailed accounts of incredible leaders. Some are better known than others but they all demonstrated a range of beautiful leadership qualities that we can learn from today. In our ongoing Lecture Series, Paradigms of Leadership, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad chooses exemplary figures in Islamic history of every generation, geography and gender, drawing out particular lessons for us: both in the way they carried themselves through society and in the principles they employed in handling the urgent challenges of their day.

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad honours Imam Ali (ra) – a great paradigm of heroism that has always captured the Muslim imagination – by focusing on his esoteric qualities.

Shah Shahidullah Faridi, born John Gilbert Lennard and raised in a wealthy English family, left his home in search of a Sufi shaykh. We are met with the Chishti Sabri Shaykh, Syed Muhammad Zauqi Shah, who Faridi pledged allegiance to, later becoming his spiritual successor. He lived in Karachi for three decades until his death in Ramadan 1978.

Swedish artist & anarchist Ivan Aguéli, became Muslim in Paris in the late nineteenth century. Known also as Abd al-Hadi, we learn that he was one of the first Western Europeans to be educated at Al-Azhar University, where he studied Arabic and Islamic philosophy.

Ahmed Bullock, was a respected British Muslim, Arabic and Hebrew scholar, dealer in books, and the first English Imam of Oxford. Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad takes us through his life by looking at a number of the Imam's own handwritten letters.

Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi of India, navigated unparalleled challenges of tradition and modernity, and was healed from a crisis of faith by revistiting reality through the sirah; the paradigm of human perfection.

Through Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal's awareness of the sanctity and spiritual greatness of the Holy Prophet ﷺ we can reflect on the immense care he took in not only maintaining the words of the Hadith, but also their spirit.