Nuh Ha Mim Keller (born 1954) is an American Muslim translator of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic books and a specialist in Islamic Law as well as an authorised
sheikhSheikh, also rendered as Sheik, Shaykh, Shaikh, Cheikh, Šeih, Šejh and other variants , is a word or honorific term in the Arabic language that literally means "elder". It is commonly used to designate an elder of a tribe, a revered wise man, or an Islamic scholar...
in tasawwuf in the
ShadhiliThe Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order founded by Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili. Followers of the Shadhiliya are often known as Shadhilis....
Sufi order and in the Shafi`i
MadhhabMadhab is an Islamic school of law, or fiqh . In the first 150 years of Islam, there were many such "schools" - in fact, several of the Sahābah, or contemporary "companions" of Muhammad, are credited with founding their own...
who currently lives in
AmmanAmman , sometimes spelled Ammann , is the capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a city of 2,525,000 inhabitants , and the administrative capital and commercial center of Jordan. It is also the largest city in Jordan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world...
,
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
.
Keller was born in 1954 in the Northwestern United States of America and grew up in the small town of
Odessa, WashingtonOdessa is a town in Lincoln County, Washington, United States. The population was 957 at the 2000 census.-History:George Finney first settled on the site of Odessa in 1886...
in eastern
Washington stateWashington State may refer to:* The state of Washington* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state....
. He was educated in
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and Arabic at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
and University of California at Los Angeles.
Nuh Ha Mim Keller (born 1954) is an American Muslim translator of
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic books and a specialist in Islamic Law as well as an authorised
sheikhSheikh, also rendered as Sheik, Shaykh, Shaikh, Cheikh, Šeih, Šejh and other variants , is a word or honorific term in the Arabic language that literally means "elder". It is commonly used to designate an elder of a tribe, a revered wise man, or an Islamic scholar...
in tasawwuf in the
ShadhiliThe Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order founded by Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili. Followers of the Shadhiliya are often known as Shadhilis....
Sufi order and in the Shafi`i
MadhhabMadhab is an Islamic school of law, or fiqh . In the first 150 years of Islam, there were many such "schools" - in fact, several of the Sahābah, or contemporary "companions" of Muhammad, are credited with founding their own...
who currently lives in
AmmanAmman , sometimes spelled Ammann , is the capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a city of 2,525,000 inhabitants , and the administrative capital and commercial center of Jordan. It is also the largest city in Jordan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world...
,
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
.
Biography
Keller was born in 1954 in the Northwestern United States of America and grew up in the small town of
Odessa, WashingtonOdessa is a town in Lincoln County, Washington, United States. The population was 957 at the 2000 census.-History:George Finney first settled on the site of Odessa in 1886...
in eastern
Washington stateWashington State may refer to:* The state of Washington* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state....
. He was educated in
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and Arabic at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
and University of California at Los Angeles. He converted to
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
in 1977 at al-Azhar in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, and later studied the Islamic sciences of
hadithHadith are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional schools of jurisprudence as important tools for determining the Muslim way of life, the sunnah. Hadith were originally oral traditions of Muhammad's actions and customs...
(Prophetic traditions), Shafi'i and
HanafiThe Hanafi school is one of the four schools of law or jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , and his legal views were preserved primarily by his two most...
schools of Islamic jurisprudence, legal methodology (usul al-fiqh), and tenets of faith (`aqidah) in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
, where he has lived since 1980.
He was authorized as a sheikh in the
ShadhiliThe Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order founded by Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili. Followers of the Shadhiliya are often known as Shadhilis....
Tariqa by the late Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri al-Shadhili in Damascus. He has students throughout the world, and has annual retreats (suhbas) with his students where he teaches
tasawwufSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
in Canada, USA, UK, Turkey, Australia, Egypt, and Pakistan.
Books
His English translation of
Umdat al-Salik,
Reliance of the Traveller, (Sunna Books, 1991) is a Shafi'i manual of Shariah. It is the first Islamic legal work in a European language to receive the certification of
Al-Azhar UniversityAl-Azhar University in Egypt, founded in 970~972, is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Sunni Islamic learning in the world and the world's second oldest surviving degree granting university. It is associated with Al-Azhar mosque in Islamic Cairo. The university's mission includes the...
.
Nuh Ha Mim Keller possesses ijazas, or "certificates of authorisation", in Islamic jurisprudence from sheikhs in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
.
His other works include:
- Al-Maqasid : Imam Nawawi's Manual of Islam, a translation of a concise manual of Shafi'i fiqh
- A Port in the Storm: A Fiqh Solution to the Qibla
Qiblah is an Arabic word for the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during Salah. Most mosques contain a niche in a wall that indicates the qiblah....
of North America, a detailed study of the most sound position on which direction North American Muslims should face to pray
- The Sunni Path: A Handbook of Islamic Belief
- Evolution
In biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
Theory in Islam
- Tariqa Notes, a small handbook for those following the Shadhili
The Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order founded by Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadhili. Followers of the Shadhiliya are often known as Shadhilis....
Sufi order.
He has also written numerous articles and is a regular contributor to
Islamica MagazineIslamica Magazine was a quarterly magazine incorporated in the United States with editorial offices in Amman, Jordan, Cambridge, MA and London, UK...
. He is currently translating Imam Nawawi's
Kitab al-Adhkar (
The Book of Remembrance of Allah), a compendium of some 1227 hadiths on prayers and
dhikrDhikr is an Islamic devotional act. It often includes the repetition of the names of God, supplications and aphorisms from hadith literature and sections of the Qur'an...
s of the prophetic
sunnahSunnah is an Arabic word that means habit or usual practice. The Muslim usage of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of Muhammad, the main prophet of Islam....
.
External links
Writings and speeches
Translations and Commentaries on Ibn `Ata'illah's Aphorisms