Adil Salahi

Adil Salahi simultaneously pursued two lines of education. In his formal education he obtained a degree in English literature and translation, as well as a Diploma in English Studies and a Masters degree in Victorian Studies from British universities. Informally he pursued Islamic studies under different scholars in mosques in Damascus, Syria, and he was certified by several teachers in the age-old tradition of Islamic scholarship. His professional career was in broadcasting and print media, with stints in the Syrian radio and the BBC Arabic Service. He was the religious editor at Alsharq Alawsat, an Arabic daily paper and Almajallah, a weekly magazine (1982-1986), and Arab News, an English Saudi daily (1981-2012) He also served as Public Information Officer at the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Region (1986-2000), during which time he produced more than 20 videos on health issues of public interest. In the last year of this work at WHO he was also in charge of the Tobacco Free Initiative in the Region. In this capacity, he initiated the project of making the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah tobacco free. His first book on the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad: Man and Prophet, has now been printed 9 times, and also published in French and Russian, and is currently being prepared for publication in Arabic. He is also the author of Pioneers of Islamic Scholarship. His answers to readers’ questions were edited and published in four volumes under the title Our Dialogue, with translations into Urdu and Sindi. He has translated into English many books on Islam, including In the Shade of the Qur’an, an 18-volume commentary on the Qur’an by Sayyid Qutb. Adil Salahi’s Islamic thought may be described as liberal, as he considers the right to freedom, in all aspects, the top human right from the Islamic point of view.