Ahmed Paul Keeler null
Visiting Fellow at the Center of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge
Ahmed Paul Keeler was born in 1942 and christened Paul Godfrey. He was brought up during the 1940s and 50s in a conservative, upper middle-class, Anglo-Catholic family. On leaving school he became deeply involved in the cultural movements of the 1960s.
A chance meeting with a master musician from India introduced him to a new cultural realm. In response, he formulated and organized The World of Islam Festival that took place in London in 1976, was opened by Her Majesty the Queen, and was the most comprehensive exposition of Islamic culture ever to have taken place in the West. Six months before the festival opened, he embraced Islam.
He has spent his working life since the Festival in establishing and engaging with projects that explore and present Islamic culture as a holistic environmental manifestation. Residing in Cambridge for the last 22 years he has had a profound impact on a number of students passing through the University. He is now lecturing and participating in seminars encouraging us to judge the success of human culture through the criteria of Mizan, which is at the heart of the Islamic unfolding.
Ahmed Keeler is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, and was a Distinguished Fellow at The Faculty of Leadership and Management, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia in 2016. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Bolton in 2016.