Zeshan Ullah Qureshi

I am a PhD Research Fellow at MF, specializing in European reception of Islam, Qur’ān translation, and tafsīr (Qur'ān exegesis). In my doctoral project: “Beyond Orientalism: George Sale, al-Bayḍāwī, and the European Qurʾān Translation Tradition,” I am investigating how the British Orientalist scholar George Sale in the Enlightenment produced the first English translation of the Qur'ān directly from Arabic, utilizing the tafsīr of the medieval Persian philosopher Naṣir al-Din al-Bayḍawī.

I have previously specialized in sharī’ah (Islamic law), spending more than 10 years studying the Islamic sciences in the Muslim world, 9 years at the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi-Arabia, and 1 year in Alexandria, Egypt. In Madinah, I completed a Master's in Uṣūl al-Fiqh, after a Bachelor's in Sharī'ah. In my 496-page long Master's thesis, I investigated the philosophy of differences in Islamic legal theory developed by the Medieval Indian theologian Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Hindī, and its application in fatwá-construction.