Faisal Kutty is a Canadian lawyer, writer and human rights activist. He is a law professor and widely quoted commentator and public intellectual. He is the son of Islamic scholar Shaikh Ahmad Kutty.
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Kutty studied economics at York University and entered law school at the University of Ottawa in 1991. He graduated with an LL.B. (cum laude) and during his studies served terms as book reviews and articles editor of the Ottawa Law Review. He went on to obtain an LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in 2006 and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in law at Osgoode.
Kutty articled with a Toronto law firm and then started his own practice in 1996. He practices under the firm name Kutty, Syed & Mohamed. He is an adjunct professor teaching comparative law [1] at Osgoode Hall Law School and a visiting professor at Valparaiso University School of Law.[2] He previously taught in the Skills and Professional Responsibility course in the Licensing Program administered by the Law Society of Upper Canada. He has also taught corporate/commercial law in the Bar Admissions Courses and legal research and writing at Osgoode Hall Law School.
Kutty has been a vocal spokesperson and advocate on human rights and the excesses of anti-terror legislation and policies. He co-founded the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association in 1994, for which he currently serves as general counsel. He is also a former vice chair of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), a Muslim advocacy organization in Canada. He is an opponent of Canada’s no-fly list known as Passenger Protect. He filed submissions against the initiative on behalf of more than two dozen groups titled "Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?"[3]
Kutty along with his partner Akbar Sayed Mohamed act for the CMCLA and CAIR-CAN in their intervention in the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182. In December 2004, Marion Boyd released a study that recommended that the Ontario government permit the adoption of sharia tribunals for Muslims who wished to have family arbitration disputes settled in that manner. Kutty commented on this report on behalf of various Muslim groups.[4] [5]
Kutty wrote that the purported banning of faith-based arbitration was a delayed opportunity for the indigenization of Islamic law in the North American context [6]
He has written on the topics related to Islamist thought.[7][8] He was the defence lawyer for 19-year-old girl named Saima Mohamed, sister in law of Fahim Ahmed.[9] Some observers claim that he defends those who espouse causes supportive of Islamic fundamentalists and extremists. Others extend this to link him to Islamists.
He is included in the list of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World.[10] published by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre,[11] an independent research entity affiliated with the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought is an international Islamic non-governmental, independent institute headquartered in Amman, the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Kutty was married for more than a decade to his Saudi wife, Bushra. They had one child together and later separated and divorced citing irreconcialable differences. He remarried in 2010 to a former Pakistani model, Sana. They live in Chicago.