Adnan Bin Abdus Salam is an academic and an aspiring software engineer. He previously served as a Social Media Manager of Bangladesh Generation Parliament (BGP) by UNICEF Bangladesh and BDF. He was also one of the Mentors of BGP National Events. He worked as an active member of AIUB Computer Club – R&D and also as a Website volunteer of AIUB IEEE SB. He was also a part of global youth platform AIESEC as a Team Member of outgoing Global Talent of AIESEC in Dhaka South. Currently he is a student of Computer Science and Engineering in American International University – Bangladesh (AIUB).

Gulshanara Begum is a senior lecturer of School of Life Sciences at University of Westminster. Her research interests span from investigating fatigue mechanisms during physical activity to studying the potential effectiveness of ergogenic aids during sports of differing intensities and durations. Increasingly, She is working on public health related projects exploring diet and lifestyle attitudes in populations of interest (for example; South Asian, African/Caribbean and Somali) to explore potential culturally sensitive intervention strategies for health and well-being. Moving forward, She is keen to engage in research projects focused on developing sustainable food resource strategies by investigating nutritional qualities and health potential of food resources widely available but generally unused or under-used in emerging nations.

Abdullah Mahmud Nazib is studying MA in Applied Linguistics and Arabic Language Teaching at the University of Dhaka. He obtained BA in Arabic from the same university. Nazib authored eleven books (fictions and academic fictions), and translated three famous 'Deewaans' of classical Arabic literature into Bengali. Currently he is working on the poems composed by the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He is also interested in exploring the world of the poetesses from Abbasid and Andalusian eras.

Nazmus Sakib is a PhD researcher in International Relations at Texas Tech University. His data driven research focuses on international alliances, authoritarian regimes, diplomacy, civil-military relations, defense industry, and immigration. His peer reviewed academic articles have appeared in European Politics and Society journal and forthcoming at Politics and Policy Journal. His op-ed pieces have appeared in Newsweek, Forbes, the National Interest, TRTWorld, Middle East Monitor, Open Democracy, Daily Sabah etc.

Dr Mohammed Abdul Aziz completed his LLB(Hons), LLM and PhD in Law from the University of London and was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn. He has worked as a teacher, policy officer and lawyer. He was the founding CEO/Director of the Forum Against Islamophobia & Racism (2000-3), the British Muslim Research Centre (2003-5) and the Aziz Foundation (2015-18). He was appointed by the Government to serve as a Commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality (2003-7) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (2005-7) and to help set up the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2004-7). He was elected Chair of the European Network Against Racism (2007-10) and Vice-Chair of the Equality and Diversity Forum (2010-14). He was the Director of FaithWise Ltd and a Consultant Senior Advisor to the UK Government on Race, Faith & Integration (2004-11), during which time he navigated through Parliament five pieces of legislation on religious discrimination. Dr Aziz was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University (2010-12), Director of the Centre for Policy and Public Education at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge (2012-15), an Associate Member of St Edmund's College, Cambridge (2013-15); and sat on two national Honours Committees at the request of the UK’s Cabinet Office (2005-11). Between 2013-16, he set up and led the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life in the UK. Currently, he is a Trustee of Muslim Aid (an international humanitarian/development charity) and Demos (a UK think tank), and a Panel Member of REF 2021 (the research assessment framework for UK universities).

Faroque Amin has obtained his PhD on the correlation of social welfare and Islamic politics from the School of Social Science in Western Sydney University, Australia. He has also been trained in religious studies by studying M.A. in Usul-al-Din and Comparative Religion in International Islamic University Malaysia, Arabic Language and Islamic Studies in Al Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and in International Islamic University Chittagong, Bangladesh. His research interests include contemporary Islamic movements, social welfare, Islamic theology, Muslim diasporas and sociology of religion.

Mohammad Hossain is a PhD student in History at Ibn Haldun University in Turkey. He completed his MA in Civilization Studies from the Alliance of Civilizations Institute at the same university. His thesis was entitled “Ecology, epidemics and the colonial state: environmental change and health in eastern Bengal Delta, 1858-1947.” His research areas lie at the intersections of social and natural sciences, and currently encompass environmental history and the history of science in precolonial and colonial India (1600-1900). Apart from the above, he is also a regular commentator and analyst of contemporary South Asian socio-political developments, and his writings have appeared in Anadolu Agency, The Platform UK, and World Bulletin, among others.

Aktay got his Bachelor’s Degree in 1990, Master’s Degree in 1993 and PhD in 1997 from Department of Sociology at Middle East Technical University at Ankara. In 1999 he became an Associate Professor in the field of Applied Sociology and in 2005 a Professor in the field of Sociology of Institutions. He spent 20 years as an academician at Selçuk University (Konya) where he started as a research assistant in 1992. He is now affiliated with and teching in Ankara Yıldırım Bayazıt University, Department of Sociology. Aktay was teaching and doing researches at Utah University and University of Maine at Farmington between 2001-2004.

He has been editing the Tezkire Journal of Social Science Thought and Politics that he founded with a group of his friends in 1991 and the Sivil Toplum Journal founded in 2002. He is also editorial member of the Journals Milel and Nihal and ReOrient: Critical Muslim Studies. Aktay managed a think-thank institute based in Ankara for four years: Institute for Strategic Thinking, where he is still an honorarium president.

Aktay joined AK Party in the 2012 Congress and was elected as member of Higher Committee of Execution. Since January of 2014 he served as deputy chairman of the AK Party in charge of foreign relations, then in charge of Human rights and Official spokesman of the Party. He presented many TV programs in several TV Channels, TV Net, Channel 24 and TRT Arabic. He worked as the Chief Adviser of the President of AK Party between 2017 and 2021.

Aktay has published many books and articles in Turkish, English and Arabic, and his books were translated into Arabic and Kurdish. He is member of Turkish Academy of Science (TÜBA) he still writes regular columns for Yeni Şafak Newspaper and Aljazeera.net.

Ebrahim Rasool is the founder of the World for All Foundation, with a vision to create a just, sustainable and dignified world for all, safe for difference and free of extremisms, having completed a term as South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States of America (2010 to 2015). This appointment was the culmination of a distinguished record of Public Service. Previously he served as a Member of Parliament in South Africa’s National Assembly and Special Advisor to the State President, Kgalema Mothlanthe. In addition to his work in the World for All Foundation, he is an Associate of the Albright Stonebridge Group, the business consultancy founded by Secretary Madeline Albright, founder of OneAfrica.Org that fights Afro-Phobia and advances African growth and cohesion, and the Chairman of Western Province Professional Rugby.

Governance Experience:

However, he is more remembered as the Premier or Governor of the Western Cape Province, a socially fragmented Province, which he worked towards cohering with a vision of making it “A Home for All.” This vision was underpinned with an economic and social strategy (iKapa elihlumayo – the Cape that we grow and share) that was instrumental in, amongst others, attracting foreign investment into the Province worth R14 billion (approximately $1 billion), achieving the highest provincial GDP growth rate of 5,8%, and making significant strides towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) in education, health (especially in combatting HIV and AIDS) and service delivery.

Ebrahim Rasool has built up extensive experience of Government having politically led various Departments like Health, Welfare, Finance and Economic Development in the capacity of Provincial Minister, and excelled not only in the services rendered by these departments, but in the thoughtful approach he brought to the transformation and reform of them from racially exclusive to integrated services, catering for all people.

Awards:

For such contributions to South Africa, Ambassador Rasool has been the recipient of a number of awards: “Social Services Leader of the Year” Award (1995) from the African Investment Group; “Visionary Leadership and Public Good” Award from the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists in 2008; “Commitment and Leadership in the Fight Against Crime” from Business Against Crime (2009); The 2005 London Financial Times “Foreign Direct Investment (Africa) Personality of the Year” Award; The “Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights” presented to him by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 1998; “Indonesian Diasporean of 2012” Award by the President of Indonesia; as well as the Award for his Lifetime Commitment to Human Rights by Shared Interest in New York, and Inaugural Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

The Anti-Apartheid Struggle:

He has a long history of involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle starting at High School in 1976 and including leadership in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the African National Congress (ANC). He was Provincial Leader of the ANC and served on its National Executive Committee for 7 years. He has had to make sacrifices like spending time in prison, where in 1987 at Pollsmoor Prison, he met Nelson Mandela for the first time, as well as being placed under restrictions and house arrest by the apartheid government.

Shaping Transition:

His social and political involvement has also been through faith-driven movements. He was a founder of The Call of Islam, an anti apartheid Muslim organisation that revolutionised the way Muslims in South Africa thought about democracy, human rights, gender equality, inclusivity, relationships with people of other faiths, ideologies and cultures, as well as provide new methodologies of struggle. He was also instrumental in leading the Interfaith Movement, founded by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both in the anti apartheid struggle and through the transition. He convened the National Muslim Conference which defined the future of a Muslim minority in a free and democratic South Africa, as well as two National Interfaith Conferences to help shape the emergent South African Constitution. These commitments were tested when, as a political leader in Cape Town, he had to confront extremist Muslim forces who were terrorising the community and threatened his life. In this he pioneered innovative ways to confront extremism.

The World for All Foundation:

Founder of the World for All Foundation, Ambassador Rasool is active in rethinking the intellectual tools for co-operative relations between faiths, cultures and communities at a global level, and establishing dignity, inclusion and equity for those marginalised and excluded. The World for All is especially active among Muslim Minority communities to try and transfer the lessons from South Africa, and increasingly is acting as a conduit for lessons from the example of Nelson Mandela to the Muslim heartlands in need of freedom, democracy and human rights, through a reinterpretation of Muslim theology.

During the Arab Uprisings Ebrahim Rasool was part of a small team of Muslim intellectuals engaged in discussions with constitution writers from countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and others, and his contribution was regarded as that of a political practitioner who had implemented a seamless relationship between Islam and living democratically, with human rights and in freedom. In 2013 he convened a Muslim Minority Leaders’ Colloquium in Paris, drawing together delegates from 22 countries under the Banner: “Living Where We Don’t Make the Rules” and trying to find formulae for co-existince in shared spaces for Muslim minorities.

The Public Space:

Ebrahim Rasool is regularly requested to speak at Conferences and Conventions, seminars and public meetings. His Governance, Political and Intellectual experience is the basis for keynote addresses, commencement speeches, panel discussions and lectures he is required to deliver. In 2014 alone, he delivered the 20th Annual Hesburgh Lecture at the University of Notre Dame, the Commencement Address at Roosevelt University, Panel Remarks at the Faith In Action Breakfast to open the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit convened by President Obama, the Keynote Address at the British Muslim Council AGM in London, the Strategy Presentation for the African Growth and Opportunities Act Retreat, presenting Africa’s Energy needs at the US-Africa Energy Ministerial Meeting in Addis Ababa, among many others. He is often asked to engage with various groups like The Carter Center.

He also writes regularly, having recently contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book on the Afro-Arab Renaissance titled “the Pharoah Returns – the ‘Politics of Order and the Muslim Yearning for Freedom.” He edited a book, Living Where We Don’t Make the Rules – A Guide for Muslim Minorities, which is currently being published. He has recently started on a book that consolidates some of the speeches he has made over the last 10 years. In the course of his extensive public life, he has been a regular feature in the public media. He has been called upon by media such as CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, Fox, MSNBC, CGTN and others to comment on a variety of matters. He is a regular feature on the African World, SABC and other electronic and print media.

Academic:

Ebrahim Rasool studied at the University of Cape Town where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literature and Economic History, and a Higher Diploma in Education. In 2014, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, by the Roosevelt University in Chicago, USA, and the Doctorate of Public Service, Honoris Causa from Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a Senior Fellow at both Georgetown and Rutgers Universities in the USA, and a Council Member-designate at the University of the Western Cape.

Sabur Mollah holds a Chair in Financial Management at Sheffield University Management School. He worked as a Professor of Accounting and Finance at Swansea University and as Professor of Finance at the University of Hull before joining the University of Sheffield. He previously held academic positions at Bournemouth University, Stockholm University, University of Botswana, University of Dhaka, and University of Leeds. Sabur held several administrative roles in the past, including Member of Senate, Head of School and Director of Research.

Lubaaba Al-Azami is an academic, editor and writer. She is a researcher in the Department of English at the University of Liverpool where she also teaches. She previously served as visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. Her work examines early modern English transcultural exchange with the Mughal Empire. She is founding editor of Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs), a transnational digital research platform on the early interactions between England and the Islamic worlds. She is also founding convener of Network of Sisters in Academia, the first international professional network of Muslim women academics. Lubaaba serves on the Board of Trustees at the Nabeel Foundation, on the Digital Affairs Committee of the Shakespeare Association of America and is Deputy Editor of The Platform. Her book, First Encounters: How England and Mughal India Changed the World, is forthcoming from John Murray Press. She completed her BA in English at King’s College London, an MA in Islamic Studies at SOAS, University of London and an MA in English from The George Washington University, Washington DC.