Abu-Abdullah Adelabu

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Abdulfattah Abu-Abdullah Taiwo Adelabu (born 1964) is a West African Muslim scholar, writer, academic, publisher and cleric from Osogbo, capital city of Osun State, Nigeria.

Adelabu studied Arabic and Islamic Studies in Damascus, Syria, and acquired a Postgraduate Diploma, Masters Degree, and Ph.D. He was a researcher in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Oxford, Cambridge and London in the late 1990's.^[1] A scholar of Islamic and Arabic Studies as well as a linguist, jurist and lecturer, Adelabu is the founder and first president of AWQAF Africa and AWQAF African Muslim Open College in London where he lectures on Arabic and Islamic studies.^[2]

His academic works and publications include an Arabic English Dictionary, an encyclopedic Dictionary of Quran and Sunnah, Islam in Africa - West African in Particular, and Missionary and Colonization in Africa. He also founded and published in the United Kingdom 1998 Delab International - an African-Asian Middle East magazine and journal covering religion, politics, sociology, and literature. ^[3]

Adelabu founded the African Muslim portal esinislam.com and islamafrica.com, both of which are administered and directed by his wife as the director and editor-in-chief, with management by volunteers from the students and followers of Adelabu, especially at AWQAF African and AWQAF Africa Open College London. ^[4]

Da’wah activities of the African academic include serving as an Imam Khatib previously as Kuwaiti Cultural Attaché London, working as Islamic columnist for the Libyan Arabic daily newspaper AL-ARAB INTERNATIONAL in London,^{[citation needed]} and serving as Imam and Chief Missioner previously for the Islamic Youth League of Nigeria, Abuja.

[edit] In Syria

Adelabu was a postgraduate in Damascus in the early 1990’s when Syria reviewed its national security after the ‘Oslo Accords’. Syria, like many other countries around the world, witnessed during this period, a flood of refugees from war troubled nations like Somalia, the arrival of people from Algeria during the civil war, resettlement of Palestinians as well as other African migration for many other reasons. As a delegate of the African Students Union and general secretary of the West African Students' Union in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, the founder visited prisons and hospitals during the time when over 10,000 African migrants had been killed, jailed, or wounded in their adventures to reach the Middle-East, many for sanctuary and others to get to Europe for what they had expected to be a better life.^[5]

Horrified at the number of unknown or unclaimed dead among the immigrant prisoners and their wounded countrymen, women, and children in the hospitals, Adelabu formed a group of volunteer African students to help. The founder received huge support from the President of the Syrian Scientific Academy and Chancellor of the University of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Abdullatif Salih Al Farfour, and from the Dean of Postgraduate School at the university, Shawqi Abu Khalil, the Dean of Faculty of Literature - both signatories to the fellowship of the founder at Syrian Scientific Academy^[5]. Dr. Adelabu called for wider adoption of Islamic values which he claimed would bring about lasting and positive changes while learning from the effects of colonization, slavery, and power struggles^[5]. It is reported that influential people met with him in mid 1995 to discuss his ideas.^[6]

Adelabu studied under scholars in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Among his teachers and mentors are Abdul-Qadir Al-Arna`uut Damascus, Shawqi Abu-Khalil Damascus, Muhammad Said Ramadhan Al-Bouti Damascus, Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani Jordan, Abdul-Latif Salih Al-Farfur Damascus, Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz, Muhammad Bin Salih Al-'Uthaymi Saudi, Wahbah Az-Zuhaili Damascus, Shu'ayb Al-Arna`uut Damascus, Mustapha Al-Bouga Damsacus, and Muhammad Said Al-Qasimi Damascus.^[7]