Profile

Mr. Siddiqui is one of very few licensed Shari'a jurists who have also studied and practiced law in America.

Mr. Siddiqui has combined his Shari'a knowledge with the study of law in England and in America. He earned the Degree of Higher License from the College of Shari'a at the Islamic University of Medina, Saudi Arabia, following a seven-year course in the study of Islamic law and jurisprudence. He received his Degree of Juris Doctor from Chicago-Kent College of Law and Masters in Law from Temple Law Center and Harvard Law School. In addition, he studied comparative Islamic and English law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Mr. Siddiqui is licensed to practice law in New York. For 20 years he served as the legal advisor in various ministries of the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., where he served as legal advisor from 1990 to 2002. Mr. Siddiqui advised the Embassy in areas of international law, diplomatic immunity, sovereign immunity and commercial transactions between the Kingdom, Saudi nationals and U.S. companies. While in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Siddiqui administered all legal aspects of design, supervision, construction and maintenance contracts for multi-billion dollar construction projects to build King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh. In 1981, he assisted in drafting legislation for the first patent law for the Kingdom with due regard to Shari'a requirements.

Currently he advises U.S. corporations on utilizing Islamic financing in international investments. He has drafted core Shari'a compliant contracts for Fannie Mae for use by Islamic finance vendors in New York, Michigan and Illinois. He currently serves as a Shari'a expert on the Afghanistan Transitional Commercial Law Project, which is involved in preparing a codification of laws for Afghanistan. He serves as an expert witness on various aspects of Shari'a law in litigation pending in U.S. courts.

Mr. Siddiqui has lectured and published articles on Islam, Islamic family law, Islamic law of inheritance, Islamic law of corporations and Islamic law of finance with specific reference to its applicability under the U.S. laws. Originally from India, he in fluent in Hindi and Urdu as well as Arabic and English. Mr. Siddiqui lives with his family in Great Falls, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.