Born in Afghanistan in 1944, Mohammad Hashim Kamali served as Professor of Islamic law and jurisprudence at the International Islamic University Malaysia, and also as Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilisation (ISTAC) from 1985 – 2007. He is currently the CEO & Chairman of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS) of Malaysia. He studied law at Kabul University and then served as Assistant Professor. Subsequently, he served as Public Prosecutor with the Ministry of Justice, Afghanistan, 1965 – 1968. He completed his LL.M in comparative law and PhD in Islamic and Middle Eastern law at the University of London, 1969 – 1976. He was subsequently employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation as a broadcasting support staff in Reading, UK., 1976 – 1979. Dr. Kamali served as Assistant Professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University in Montreal, and was subsequently appointed as a Research Associate with the Canada Council for Social Science and Humanities, 1979 – 1985. He was a Visiting Professor at Capital University in Ohio in 1991. Later he served as Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin, Germany, 2000 – 2001. He is currently a Fellow of that Institute and also a member of the Royal Academy of Jordan. He served as a member and Chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission of Afghanistan, May – September 2003.  He is currently on the International Advisory Board of eleven academic journals published in Malaysia, USA, Canada, Kuwait, India, Australia and Pakistan. In May – June 2004, and subsequently in October 2007, he served as UN consultant on constitutional reforms in the Maldives, and also as a UN constitutional law expert on the constitution of Iraq 2005 – 2006. He is currently a Shariah Advisor with the Securities Commission of Malaysia, Chairman of the CIMB Shariah Committee, and Chairman of the Shariah Board, Stanlib Corporation of South Africa.

Professor Kamali has addressed over 120 national and international conferences, published 16 books and over 110 academic articles.  He delivered the Prominent Scholars Lecture Series (Silsila Muhadarat Ulama’ al-Barizin) No. 20 at the Islamic Research and Training Institute of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1996, and the Multaqa Sultan Ahmad Shah Lecture in Kuantan, 2002.  His books, Law in Afghanistan (Leiden, 1985); Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 1991 & 2003); Freedom of Expression in Islam (Cambridge, 1997); Freedom, Equality and Justice in Islam (Cambridge, 2002), and A Textbook of Hadith Studies (Leicester, UK. ,2005) are used as reference works in leading English speaking universities worldwide. A revised edition of his book, An Introduction to Shari’ah (K.L., 2006) is due to be published by Oneworld Publications of Oxford (February 2008). He received the Isma’il al-Faruqi Award for Academic Excellence twice, in 1995 and 1997, and he is listed in a number of leading Who’s Whos in the World.