Al-Majlis al-Istishārī

The International Islamic College is a young institution — founded last October, and still in its foundations. A serious institution of learning does not, at this stage, rely on its own opinion alone; it submits its affairs to those more learned than itself.

That is what al-Majlis al-Istishārī is for: scholars from different lands and schools, consulted on the curriculum, arbiters of the College's standards, and a living link between students in Britain and the chains of scholarship across the Muslim world. The Majlis is consultative — administrative decisions remain with the College's leadership, but no scholarly direction will be taken without the counsel of its people.

We will announce the members of the Majlis one by one, each after he has accepted — not a list of names for decoration, but scholars who have genuinely agreed to carry this trust with us.

Shaykh Zainul Abideen ibn Muhammad Bilafreej was born and raised in the old city of Rabat, beside its Grand Mosque, entering Qur'an school as a young child. He earned his doctorate in 1990, and studied under a generation of scholars including Shaykh Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albānī, Shaykh Hammād al-Ansārī and Shaykh ʿAbd al-Muhsin al-ʿAbbād.

He is Professor of Higher Education at Hassan II University in Casablanca, formerly of the Department of Kitāb and Sunnah at Umm al-Qurā University in Makkah, and currently Visiting Professor at the Islamic University of Madinah. He judges research for the Prince Naif Prize for the Sunnah and Islamic Studies, reviews scholarship for Kuwait University, has supervised and examined Masters and doctoral theses since 1990, and his critical edition of al-Zarkashī's al-Nukat ʿalā Ibn al-Salāh is among his published works.

For years the Shaykh has advised Islamic centres and platforms in the West — and his joining the College's Majlis is an extension of that long care for the Muslims of Europe and their education.