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TAHA JABIR AL ALWANI

Founding member and President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought
Affiliated with the Graduate School for Social and Islamic Sciences
Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy
Founder-member of the Council of the Muslim World League

Taha Jabir Al Alwani is a professor and mullah who was born in Iraq about 1935. A graduate of the College of Shari’ah (Islamic law) and Egyptian Secular Law at Al Azhar University in Cairo, he holds both a Master's Degree and a Doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence, a subject he taught for ten years (1975-85) as a professor at Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Alwani was a founding member (along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian) of the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Virginia. He is affiliated with the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. He is a Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. And he is a founder-member of the Council of the Muslim World League in Mecca. Moreover, he has been a member of the OIC Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jeddah since 1987, and President of the Fiqh Council of North America since 1988.

Alwani has authored several books on Islamic Jurisprudence, including: Legal Reasoning and Imitation in Islam; Rights of the Accused in Islam; and The Ethics of Disagreement in Islam.

In The Ethics of Disagreement in Islam, Alwani discusses what he views as the paramount importance of Muslim unity against non-believers: “One of the most important responsibilities which all Muslims should be aware of is the duty to preserve the brotherhood and the solidarity of Muslims. Part of this duty is to scrupulously avoid anything that would corrupt or weaken these bonds. … It is sufficient to recall that the noble Prophet aroused in us an abhorrence of disunity by sanctioning the most severe punishment for the one who deliberately splits from the community (jamaa`ah). For this reason, any tendency to forsake Islamic brotherhood or [to] be [unconcerned] about it because of any difference of opinion is something which no Muslim is allowed to do. Moreover, he should be perceptive enough not to fall into the trap of dissension set by the enemies of Islam. This is especially so in our times, as many hostile forces and nations are pitted against us … With their wanton hands they seek to grind the tender shoots of the Islamic awakening into the dust.”

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