Farhat Hashmi Biography

Personal Profile About Farhat Hashmi

Farhat Naseem Hashmi, a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim television preacher and the creator of the Al-Huda Institute, was born on December 22, 1957.

She previously held positions as a lecturer and assistant professor at the Faculty of Usul-al-Din at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. She holds a PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Hashmi founded the Al-Huda International Welfare Foundation in 1994.
In order to

“help women become better observant Muslims by assisting them in understanding the Quran,”

the organization developed a variety of schools to instruct women in the Hadith and the Quran.

Currently, the organisation runs a network of colleges, seminaries, and social welfare programmes. In 2004, the Al-Huda Institute was established in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (region of Toronto). Students from all around the world, including Australia, enrol in the institute’s Quran and Hadith exegesis courses.

Early life and education

On December 22, 1957, Farhat Hashmi was born in Sargodha, Punjab. Her father, Abdur Rehman Hashmi, was a scholar of Islam and the regional chairman of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.Prior to enrolling at the Government College for Women in Sargodha and eventually receiving a Master’s degree in Arabic Language from the University of Punjab in Lahore, she attended a local school.

Her father taught her the Islamic beliefs at home, where she received her religious education. She wed Muhammad Idrees Zubair, another Hadith expert, and the two of them took up teaching positions at the International Islamic University (IIU) in Islamabad. They moved to Scotland shortly after that and enrolled in a doctoral programme in Islamic studies. During this period, they both travelled to Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

She relocated to Canada in 2005.

Career

When Hashmi was a professor at the International Islamic University, she started unofficial religious gatherings for women. Upon her return to Pakistan, she founded Al-Huda International, a non-profit welfare trust with the mission of instructing women in the interpretation and practical application of Islamic principles. Some perceived the establishment of a progressive school solely for women by a female Islamic scholar as a direct reaction to large seminaries, which women had come to view as outdated and overly politicised.

Hashmi is renowned for her unusual teaching style and cutting-edge feminism presentations. Her female students, the bulk of whom come from educated, urban backgrounds, can relate to her since she uses contemporary teaching methods and is trilingual in Urdu, Arabic, and English.The institute’s attractiveness can be attributed in part to Hashmi’s innovative teaching methods, according to academic studies.

When Hashmi first started her career, she was a Geo TV television preacher and the host of the Ramadan programme Shahru Ramadan. She also made an appearance on Aag TV’s The Quran & You programme. She kept giving lectures on Quran exegesis on Geo’s Fahm ul Quran programme. Lately, stand-alone episodes of her lectures have been broadcast on television. She delivers her lectures from her laptop while wearing an Islamic veil and niqab during her broadcast programmes. This has been called a

“confluence of prosperous media savvy traditionalism.”

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