قال الإمام الصادق (ع) اُطْلُبُوا الْعِلْمَ وَتَزَيَّنُوا مَعَهُ بِالْحِلْمِ وَالْوَقَارِ وَتَوَاضَعُوا لِمَنْ‏ تُعَلِّمُونَهُ الْعِلْمَ وَتَوَاضَعُوا لِمَنْ‏ طَلَبْتُمْ مِنْهُ الْعِلْمَ

Imam al-Sadiq (a) said, “Seek knowledge, and along with it, adorn yourselves with forbearance and dignity. [And if you are learned,] show humility to those whom you teach, and show humility to those from whom you have sought [and acquired] knowledge.”

(Al-Kafi, v.1, p.86)

The tradition above was quoted by His Eminence, Sayyid Ali Husayni Sistani (may Allah protect our scholars), when guidance was sought from him regarding the initiation of the Hawza Online project. Click here to view His Eminence’s written expression of appreciation, support, and guidance for Hawza Online.

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Academic Staff

All our courses are taught by expert teachers who have not only been through the hawza system but have many years of experience teaching English-speaking students from all over the world.

Shaykh Rizwan Arastu

Shaykh Rizwan Arastu is a graduate of the Islamic Seminary of Qum. Prior to the seminary, he received his bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology along with minors in near eastern studies and education from Princeton University. Shaykh Rizwan is the founding director of the Islamic Texts Institute and Islamic-Literacy.org. He is also a faculty at the Ahl al-Bayt Islamic Seminary in Chicago. Shaykh Rizwan is the author of Tajwid: A Guide to Qur’anic Recitation (2nd edition, 2020), God’s Emissaries: Adam to Jesus (2014), and Every Muslim’s Guide to the Islamic Legal System (2020). He is a co-author of al-Nudbah: A Devotional Elegy for the Prophet Muhammad and his Family (2009), al-Kafi Book I: Intellect and Foolishness (2012), al-Kafi Book II: Knowledge and Its Merits (2014), al-Kafi Book III: God and His Oneness (2018), and A Salute to the Master of Martyrs (2015). He is currently writing The Last Emissary: Muhammad.

Shaykh Qasim Assady

Shaykh Qasim Assady is an academic and lecturer. He has taught Linguistics, Islamic Studies, Hadith, and Classical Arabic for approximately 20 years. From 2006 to 2012, Shaykh Assady taught Arabic as a foreign language for hawza studies at the Islamic Institute for Postgraduate Studies in Damascus. He later taught Arabic at other academic institutes, including universities and seminaries in the Middle East. Shaykh Assady is the author of the textbooks used on the Arabic programme at Hawza Online.

Shaykh Muhammad Saeed Bahmanpour

Shaykh Bahmanpour studied sociology at the London School of Economics and Tabataba’i University, Tehran, from which he attained a Master’s degree. He then studied religion in the Tehran and Qum seminaries. In 1999, Shaykh Bahmanpour was invited by Cambridge University to teach as a visiting lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Later, he was appointed Principal of The Islamic College in London and held this position for four years. Shaykh Bahmanpour has a particular interest in the history of Jesus and Mary from an Islamic perspective. His screenplay about the life of Mary was produced into what was to become one of the most successful movies in the Persian language. It has also been reproduced into a television series and has been translated into several languages. Another of his works on Christian history is a screenplay about The Seven Sleepers of the Cave (Aṣḥāb al-Kahf). Shaykh Bahmanpour has lectured worldwide and has authored several books including Muslim Identity in the 21st Century (2001), The Idols Will Fall (2010), The Blessed Tree: The Life and Times of Fatima Daughter of Muhammad (2011), Towards Eternal Life (2015), and Understanding Sura Yāsīn (2018). He is also the co-supervisor of Tafsir Tadabbur Al-Qur’an (A Reflective Commentary of the Qur’an) – Juz’ 30 (2023).

Fatima Daher

Fatima Daher is a language teacher with a degree in Education from McGill University in Montreal. She grew up in Canada and spent 6 years in Lebanon, where she studied Arabic and Hawza studies. Additionally, she completed an advanced online Tajwid course accredited by al-Atabah al-Husayniyyah in Qum. She is also proficient in Persian and is currently learning Portuguese and Urdu. Over the past 15 years, Fatima has taught French, English, and Arabic to both young and adult students.