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Join the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) for a talk in our Spiritual Luminaries of Islamic Africa series. 

THIS TALK IS ONLINE ONLY.  A Zoom link will be shared in January, 2026.

Muhammad Shareef is the founding Director of the Sankore Institute of Islamic - African Studies International (SIIASI), founded originally in the Republic of Sudan and now located in the Republic of Mali.  He is a historian, translator, teacher, and master calligrapher who has done extensive scholarly ressearch on those regions of African located south of the Sahara desert, traditionally referred to as "Al-Bilad As-Sudan." For over three decades, Shaykh Shareef traversed Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, collecting rare Arabic manuscripts and absorbing scared knowledge from some of Africa's most learned Muslims scholars.

Shaykh Shareef received the bulk of his traditionan Islamic education while living in the town of Maiurno on the banks of the Blue Nile (Sudan). While there, he became inspired to create an instituiton that would preserve and make known to the entire world the rich cultural legacy of Islamic Africa. 

Since its inception, SIIASI has collected and digitally archived ove 2000 Arabic manuscripts, some of which have been translated and made available to the general public and inmate popultions throughout the United States.