Teacher

Brother Abu Abdur Rahman obtained a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from University of Toronto in 2005, and is currently working full time as a researcher with advanced applied research and engineering team at one of fortune 500 companies in Canada.

During his university days, he used to attend lectures from student of knowledge and du’aats when they would come on campus and always found peace and tranquility but he started getting serious about learning Islam after completion of his Bachelor’s degree, and one of the most impactful series of lecture series that he listened to was Sheikh Bilal Philips – Foundation of Islamic Studies. This made him aware of different branches of Islamic Studies, why we worship Allah SWT and what are the sources of knowledge in Islam, and to separate cultural traditions from authentic knowledge.

Coming from a scientific and mathematical background he was very keen on going deeper, and Alhamdulillah he found Masajids in Toronto that strove to spread authentic knowledge, going back to Quran and Sunnah and understanding it in the way that the best generation i.e. that of sahaba (Companions) understood it. He started attending local halaqahs with various scholars and students of knowledge. He also became aware of Albaseerah institute in US, and their program to take students for Umrah and have them learn for about two weeks directly from Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia in Makkah and Madina. He attended their Summer Umrah and educational seminar with the scholars, and kept up by listening to weekly lectures via telephone with these major scholars as broadcasted by Albaseerah. He started learning and practicing his Arabic listening skills. Along with that he started working on Arabic, and memorizing Quran.

He believes that one of the primary ways to reform the ummah is going back to authentic knowledge and practicing it. To contribute to this, his passion has been to help people go back and read the book of Allah, understanding what it teaches, and how it increases us in our love for Allah Subhanao, fear of his punishment and hope in his mercy. He started teaching classes (in September 2010) to help student understand the qur’aan in Arabic, reflect upon it, and see the gems and lessons in it that can help us live a much more happy, peaceful, successful and productive life individually and at a community level.

Based on his experience of teaching various students of various ages and background, and has been tuning content and syllabus based on experience, feedback from students, and from other du’aats. He has also explored various other similar approaches and have explored them and their resources, to help him in designing his courses focusing on the following scope and goals. His approach is to design the courses with a focus on practical applications, and not to go into academic and linguistic details that is amazing and interesting to hear but not remembered after the lecture is over.

He is also fascinated by the practical tafsirs done by Sheikh Sa’di and a more detailed version by his student Sheikh AlUthamien rahimahumullah, to help us see the action points, and at the same time explaining it in enough detail that one is not confused, and comfortable in explaining to others, and even to explain and handle challenges from non Muslims, and calling them to Islam. He want to bring the gems from these tafsirs to his courses and encourages students to always take the tadabbur al-qur’aan courses as a means to train themselves to directly understand Qur’aan in Arabic and more importantly to strengthen relationship with Allah Subhanao and to take actions based on the teachings of Qur’aan.