Dr Shehzad Saleem has been under the tutelage of Javed Ahmad Ghamidi since 1988 and is currently a Research Fellow of Al-Mawrid. He has a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from U.E.T Lahore, Pakistan and holds a PhD on the History of the Qur’an from the University of Wales, UK. He is the Editor of the Monthly Renaissance (1991-1995; 1998- to date). He founded the Studying Islam website in 2003, which offers online courses on Islam. He also set up a website about the life and works of the Qur’anic scholar Amin Ahsan Islahi in 2004. In 2010, he launched a website on the life and works of the Qur’anic scholar Hamid Uddin Farahi. His talks and lectures on or about Islam can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/shehzadsaleem and http://www.youtube.com/shehzadsaleemurdu. Read More ...
His current assignment is a research work on the History of the Qur’an, a part of which constituted his doctoral thesis. The work addresses some nagging questions related to the revelation, collection and transmission of the Qur’an. These questions include narratives found in our legacy on the alleged incompleteness of the Qur’an, scribal errors found in it, its variant readings, chronology of its compilation, order of the surahs, and manuscript studies.
He is also currently translating into English Amin Ahsan Islahi’s tafsir: Tadabbur-i Qur’an and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi’s annotated translation of the Qur’an: al-Bayan. He has already translated Ghamidi’s Mizan (a treatise on the contents of Islam) and Al-Islam (an abridgment of Mizan) into English. Some of his important writings which have appeared in Renaissance include: The Islamic Concept of Taxation (Oct 1992), A New Economic Framework (Jan 1994), Parental Consent in Marriage (Aug 1996), Collection and Transmission of the Qur’an (Feb 2000), Understanding the Qur’an: A Fundamental Premise (Nov 2000), His answers to various questions received about Islam can also be accessed at the Renaissance website. His Books include Common Misconceptions about Islam, Playing God: Misreading a Divine Practice, Islam and Women: Misconceptions and Misperceptions.
He has also compiled a modular textbook on Qur’anic Studies, which was taught by him to Master’s students (1998-2001). The textbook is available in course format at http://www.studying-islam.org. It comprises course topics as: Revelation of the Qur’an, Theme of the Qur’an, History of the Qur’an, Arrangement of the Qur’an, Language of the Qur’an, Interpreting the Qur’an. Through technical help, he has developed an online software (Qur’an for All) at the Studying Islam website to teach the translation of the Qur’an to those who can read the Arabic text but cannot comprehend its meaning. He conducts activity-based Quranic Workshops for adults and sessions on Character Building and Personality Development for teenagers.
