Ataullah Siddiqui (died 8 November 2020)[1] was a Muslim scholar and academic who did much to promote interfaith relations.
English career
Of Indian origin, Ataullah Siddiqui completed his secondary education in Kalimpong and moved to Britain in 1982.[2] There he became an academic, holding the position of professor of Christian-Muslim Relations and inter-faith understanding and course director of the certificate in Muslim chaplaincy course at Markfield Institute of Higher Education. Previously, he was the director of the institute from 2001 - 2008. He was also a visiting fellow in the School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester.
In the field of interfaith relations, he was a founder president and vice chair of the Christian Muslim Forum and a founder member of the Leicester Council of Faiths. His academic honours included a PhD from the University of Birmingham and an honorary doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire.[3]
Siddiqui was the author of the 2007 report, commissioned by the UK government, entitled Islam at Universities in England: Meeting the Needs and Investing in the Future.[4][5][6] He also contributed essays and articles, particularly on interfaith themes, to a number of other publications, and lectured widely.
He died of cancer in Birmingham on 8 November 2020 at the age of 66.[7]
Scholarly publications
Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan (1997)
Islam and Other Faiths [an edited collection of Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi's articles] (1998)
Christians and Muslims in the Commonwealth: A Dynamic Role in the Future (co-edited 2001)
British Secularism and Religion: Islam, Society and the State (edited with others), Markfield: Kube Publishing (2010)
Beyond the Dysfunctional Family: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Dialogue with Each Other and With Britain (edited with others), London: The Manor House Abrahamic Group (2012)
"Muslim Perceptions of Asian Christianity: A Survey", The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia, pp. 379 - 391. New York: Oxford University Press (2014)
"Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and the Honour of the Prophet: the Danish Cartoon Crisis in Perspective" in Kidwai, A.R. (Ed) Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Muslim Renaissance Man of India – A bicentenary Commemorative Volume, pp. 308 – 321. New Delhi: Viva Books (2017)
"Pope Francis, Islam and Dialogue" in Race. A, and Kasimow, H. eds. Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives, pp.169-80. London: Palgrave (2018)
"Portrayal of Christianity and Use of Christian Sources in the Tafsir-i Sanai of Sanaullah Amritsari (d. 1948)", International Journal of Asian Christianity 2 (2019), pp. 89-100.
