Mona SiddiquiOBE FRSE FRSA^[1] (born 3 May 1963)^[2][3] is a British academic. She is Professor of Religion and Society^[4] atKing's College London,^[5] a member of theCommission on Scottish Devolution^[6][7] and a member of theNuffield Council on Bioethics.^[8] She is also a regular contributor toThought for the Day,Sunday andThe Moral Maze onBBC Radio 4, and toThe Times,The Scotsman,The Guardian, andSunday Herald.

Siddiqui was born inKarachi,Pakistan.^[2] The family moved toEngland in 1965 when she was two years old. Her father was a psychiatrist and moved to England to carry out post-graduate work atCambridge. His work eventually took the family toHuddersfield when he gained a substantive job. They lived in four successive houses in Huddersfield, moving partly because the family expanded from four to six, and finally into a 1930s detached house in a relatively prosperous area near the town centre. The household was very literary and there were many books in the house.Urdu was generally spoken at home, and so the children became bilingual. Her father also spoke Arabic and worked in Saudi Arabia for a few years, where he was visited by Siddiqui at the age of about 18 together with her sister.^[9]

At the age of 11, Siddiqui attendedSalendine Nook High School, a multicultural school, where she excelled in English. She later moved toGreenhead College.^[9]

Siddiqui is fluent in French, Arabic, and Urdu and is married with three sons.^[10]

Siddiqui took her Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and French at theUniversity of Leeds (graduating in 1984), and her Master of Arts in Middle-Eastern Studies and PhD in Classical Islamic Law at theUniversity of Manchester (graduating in 1986 and 1992 respectively). She served as a member of the Advisory Boards for Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art, Scottish Asian Arts, IB Tauris Religious Studies project and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

She has worked at theUniversity of Glasgow since 1996, and in 1998 founded the Centre for the Study of Islam. In 2006, she was appointed Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding, and served as aSenate Assessor on theUniversity Court.

In 2011 Siddiqui became the first person to hold a chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh's School of Divinity.^[11] She was subsequently appointed Dean International for the Middle East.^[11] In 2016, she delivered theGifford Lectures onStruggle, Suffering and Hope: Explorations in Islamic and Christian Traditions at theUniversity of Aberdeen.^[12]

Her areas of specialisation are classical Islamic law, law and gender, early Islamic thought, and contemporary legal and ethical issues in Islam. Professor Siddiqui is the author of 'How to Read the Qur'an' (Granta), a four-volume edited collection 'Islam' (Sage) and 'The Good Muslim' (CUP). She is currently working on two further monographs withYale University Press andIB Tauris. She has published articles and chapters on classical Islamic Law and also writes and speaks frequently on Christian-Muslim issues.^[13]

Siddiqui is patron of The Feast,^[14] a pioneering youthwork charity which works for community cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people.^[15]

Siddiqui was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh in March 2005 and of theRoyal Society of Arts in October 2005. She also holds honorary D.Litt.s from theUniversity of Wolverhampton and theUniversity of Leicester. In addition. she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws by theUniversity of Huddersfield.

Siddiqui was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2011 Birthday Honours for services to inter-faith relations.^[16][17]

In January 2013, Siddiqui was nominated for the Services to Education award at theBritish Muslim Awards.^[18]

She was elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences - International Honorary Member (2019).^[19]

Books

• Siddiqui, Mona (2007).How to read the Qur'an. London: Granta Books.ISBN 978-1-86207-945-8.LCCN 2007531519.OCLC 153559796.OL 16412049M.
• Siddiqui, Mona, ed. (2010).Islam. London: SAGE.ISBN 978-1-84787-360-6.LCCN 2009936870.OCLC 464585044.
• Siddiqui, Mona (2012).The good Muslim : reflections on classical Islamic law and theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-1-139-37934-2.LCCN 2011033316.OCLC 794669898.OL 25005310M.
• Siddiqui, Mona, ed. (2013).The Routledge reader in Christian-Muslim relations. London: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-68554-2.LCCN 2012045259.OCLC 731925305.OL 27586949M.
• Siddiqui, Mona (15 April 2013).Christians, Muslims, and Jesus. New Haven.ISBN 978-0-300-18926-1.LCCN 2013934407.OCLC 841216171.OL 26886833M.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Siddiqui, Mona (2016).Hospitality and Islam : welcoming in God's name. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN 9780300223620.

Two-part interview conducted by Henk de Berg (2018).

• part I: on Siddiqui's biography, Muslim identity, the hijab
• part II: on the Quran, Mohammed, Hadith, Sunni and Shia

• 1963 births
• Living people
• Academics of the University of Edinburgh
• Alumni of the University of Leeds
• Alumni of the University of Manchester
• Royal Society of Arts
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Pakistani emigrants to the United Kingdom
• Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
• Officers of the Order of the British Empire
• Christian and Islamic interfaith dialogue
• British academics of Pakistani descent
• Women scholars of Islam
• Muslim scholars of Islamic studies

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