My name is Almaas, and despite being born in England of Indian Muslim parents I consider myself to be a convert to Islam, and have been on a journey of self-education for the last 30 years. My lived experience up until my late teenage years was secular but with the faintest connection to God. It was really only at university with its cultural and religious diversity and challenges that the self-questioning of who I really was began in earnest.
I discussed belief with my Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish friends, each time hoping to find the truth in their teachings; but each time finding incongruencies that pushed me away. It was only when I finally started researching Islam that I knew I had found the absolute truth that I couldn't deny. Although sometimes the loneliness of being in all intents and purposes a convert meant I wished I could have stayed in a happy bubble of ignorance.
Those early days of struggling to find resources to learn my new found faith and to find like-minded friends inspired me to spend the last 25+ years supporting the local convert community, which in turn has led to me starting this website and its resources.
For many years I helped run groups open to anyone who was interested in Islam, giving talks on all aspects of our faith, supporting those who wished to convert and then helping guide them in those early years, including running prayer workshops. It’s that experience which led me to record spiritual reflections and the podcast series on the Seerah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), hopefully in a style and using language which is open to all and free of jargon.
During this time I also pursued my own studies in Quran achieving an ijazah (permission to teach the recitation of the Quran) from Jordan. Studying at this level highlighted to me the difficulty of learning as a non-Arabic speaker, and again influenced this website and its resources. My aim has always been to make accessing Islam and the Quran, approachable to anyone that has a desire to learn.
My love for reciting Quran naturally led to teaching others to recite, and although l appreciated studying to a higher level, my true passion is teaching complete beginners to be able to read the words of Allah in the original Arabic.
For that reason, I have written my own course specifically aimed at those beginners with truly no background in having heard the Quran before such as converts and am using it to teach not in just weekly classes but also as lessons on my YouTube channel
I hope that the resources that are available here on this website, along with the talks and lessons available on my podcast and my YouTube channel will be of benefit to you.