In 2008 he started the Cambridge Mosque Project which raised money for the construction of a purpose-built mosque. TheCambridge Central Mosque opened on 24 April 2019 as the first purpose-built Mosque in Cambridge, and the first eco-mosque in Europe.
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad grew up in Highgate. His father was the famous architectJohn Winter and his mother was a painter.[16][17][18] He became Muslim in 1979. He was educated atWestminster School and graduated with a double-first in Arabic fromPembroke College, Cambridge, in 1983.[17] He then went on to study atAl Azhar University in Cairo[2][17] He has also engaged in private study with individual scholars in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.[2][19] After returning to England, he studied Turkish and Persian at theUniversity of London.[20] In 2015, he received a PhD atVrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with his dissertation entitled "An assessment of Islamic-Christian dichotomies in the light of Scriptural Reasoning"; it isembargoed until 2050.[21]
In 2009 Murad helped to open theCambridge Muslim College, an institute designed to train Britishimams.[22][23][24] Murad also directs the Anglo-Muslim Fellowship forEastern Europe, and the Sunna Project which has published the foremost scholarly Arabic editions of the majorSunniHadith collections.[19][17] He serves as the secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust.[17] Murad is active in translating key Islamic texts into English[1] including a translation of two volumes of the Islamic scholaral-Ghazali'sIhya Ulum al-Din.[2] His academic publications include many articles onIslamic theology and Muslim-Christian relations as well as two books in Turkish onpolitical theology. His book reviews sometimes appear in theTimes Literary Supplement. He is also the editor of theCambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology (2008) and author ofBombing without Moonlight, which in 2007 was awarded the King Abdullah I Prize for Islamic Thought.[25] Murad is also a contributor to BBC Radio 4'sThought for the Day.[26][27] Additionally, Murad is one of the signatories ofA Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding.[28]
Murad is the founder and leader of theCambridge Central Mosque project[29] which has developed a new purpose built mosque inCambridge to cater for up to 1,000 worshipers.[27][30] The mosque is an "eco-mosque" with substantial reliance on green energy and an almost-zerocarbon footprint.[29] Regarding the project, Murad stated, "This will be a very substantial world class landmark building in what is considered by some to be a down-at-heel part ofCambridge."[30]
Murad has criticised the term "Islamophobia" for its implication that hostility to Islam and Muslims is based on race or tribalistic fear rather than enmity against their religion itself.[31] Nonetheless, he has decried the rising hostility to Islam in Europe, and suggested that it is fuelled by the loss of faith and tradition within Europe itself, which he says results in Europeans formulating their identity by contrasting themselves with a Muslim Other.[32]
Murad is a traditionalist and considers the views of extremists likeal-Qaeda as religiously illegitimate and inauthentic. He decries the failure of extremists to adhere to the classical canons ofIslamic law and theology and denounces theirfatwas.[33] He unequivocally rejectssuicide bombing and considers the killing of noncombatants as always forbidden, noting that some sources consider it worse than murder. According to Murad,Osama bin Laden and his right-hand manAyman al-Zawahiri were entirely un-Islamic, unqualified vigilantes who violate basic Islamic teachings.[33]
Murad is critical of Western foreign policy for fuelling anger and resentment in the Muslim world.[34] He is also equally critical ofSaudi Arabia'sWahhabi ideology, which he believes gives extremists a theological pretext for their extremism and violence.[34]
“Readings of the ‘Reading’.” InScriptures in Dialogue: Christians and Muslims Studying the Bible and the Qur'an Together, edited by Michael Ipgrace (London: Church House Publishing, 2004), 50–55.
"The Poverty of Fanaticism." InFundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition, edited by Joseph Lumbard (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2004).
"Qur'anic Reasoning as an Academic Practice."Modern Theology 22/3 (2006): 449–463; reprinted inThe Promise of Scriptural Reasoning, edited by David Ford and C. C. Pecknold (Malden: Blackwell, 2006).
"Ishmael and the Enlightenment's Crise de Coeur." InScripture, Reason, and the Contemporary Islam-West Encounter, edited by Basit Bilal Koshul and Steven Kepnes (New York: Palgrave, 2007).
"The Saint with Seven Tombs." InThe Inner Journey: Views from the Islamic Tradition, edited byWilliam Chittick (Ashgate: White Cloud Press, 2007).
"Ibn Kemal (d. 940/1534) on Ibn 'Arabi's Hagiology." InSufism and Theology, edited by Ayman Shihadeh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007).
“Poverty and the Charism of Ishmael.” InBuilding a Better Bridge: Muslims, Christians, and the Common Good, edited by Michael Ipgrave (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009).
“Jesus and Muhammad: New Convergences.”Muslim World 99/1 (2009): 21–38.
“America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American Theopolitics.”Muslim World 101 (2011): 394–411.
^abcSchleifer, Abdallah (2011).The Muslim 500: The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims, 2012. Amman, Jordan: The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. p. 98.ISBN978-9957-428-37-2.
^Razavian, Christopher Pooya (2018). "Chapter 2: The Neo-Traditionalism of Tim Winter". In Bano, Masooda (ed.).Modern Islamic Authority and Social Change, Volume 2. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 72–74.ISBN9781474433280.
^H. Jones, Stephen (2013).New Labour and the Re-making of British Islam: The Case of the Radical Middle Way and the "Reclamation" of the Classical Islamic Tradition, 2013. Bristol, United Kingdom: Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. p. 560.
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