Yusuf completed his Qur’ān memorization in the UK in 2010 and then undertook his Qur’ānic & Arabic language studies in Alexandria, Egypt, in 2011 and subsequently received an Ijāzah (a traditional form of permission to transmit classical knowledge) which qualified him to teach the recitation of the Holy Qur’ān.
Between 2012 – 2017, Yusuf was engaged with his undergraduate studies in London whilst working as a peripatetic classroom teacher in Berkshire. In 2016, Yusuf trained as a psychotherapeutic school counsellor at the Tavistock & Portman Clinic (NHS), London, and then he graduated with a BEd in Working with children: Education & Wellbeing (First Class Hons.) and Psychology for Education Professionals (Merit) from UCL (Institute of Education) & Birkbeck University of London, respectively, in 2017.
In 2019, Yusuf received a scholarship of academic excellence which allowed him to complete an MSc in Anthropology of Childhood, Youth & Education (Distinction) at Brunel University, London. His research focused on an ethnographic study of Qurānic memorization in the UK.
Between 2020 – 2023 Yusuf spent three years as an Islamic Studies teacher in the UAE whereby he completed his NPQLT with UCL (Institute of Education). Meanwhile, parallel to his work in the classroom, he also worked alongside a UK-based NGO on international educational development programmes in the regions of West Africa and The Levant, contributing on teacher training and curriculum development for Islamic Studies.
In 2023, Yusuf completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Islamic Psychology with Cambridge Muslim College (CMC). His studies at CMC allowed him to examine the epistemological, scientific, and social transformations that gave birth to modern subjectivity and the concomitant development of modern psychology. He also focused on developing the necessary theoretical knowledge of the classical Islamic approaches to the ‘science of the soul’ or psychology by rigorously exploring classical sources in the three areas of: philosophy/theology, spirituality, law & ethics, and spiritual and physical medicine.
As an Islamic educational anthropologist and psychotherapeutic school counsellor by training, Yusuf is keen to explore the critical place of values education, Islamic psychology, and Islamic educational philosophy, within the delivery of pastoral care at schools in contemporary Britain.
Yusuf currently lives in the Midlands with his family and works as a Faith & Character Education Lead at one of Star Academies’ faith schools. He is also a teaching fellow at Markfield Institute of Higher Education, Leicestershire. Outside of work and studies, he enjoys: spending time with his family and friends, traveling, hiking and playing pool.
Supervisors
Nigel Fancourt and Terence Lovat
