In this course, interfaith expert Mehri Niknam looks at the history of Islam from its beginning until the 16th century; its prophet and the Qur'an all with a particular focus on their relationship to the Jewish people and Judaism.
Mehri Niknam was born and brought up in a Jewish family in Iran. Her academic field is “Judaism and Islam in the Middle Ages” on which she has lectured at several universities. She is also a Fulbright scholar. She has been a Jewish-Muslim interfaith consultant for over 25 years and considers her work a vocation. In 2005, she was awarded the MBE for her contributions to Muslim-Jewish Relations in Britain. In the same year she was made an Honorary Fellow at Leo Baeck College-Centre for Jewish Education.
Mehri was the Founder and Executive director of the Joseph Interfaith Foundation, the only national joint Muslim-Jewish interfaith organisation in the UK for 15 years. On her retirement in 2020, she was awarded the OBE in recognition of the significant impact her innovative work had made to improving Muslim-Jewish Relations in the UK.