Hafidh Abdul Hameed

Abdul Hameed was born in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. At the age of six, his family immigrated to the United States
and began his elementary school on the Northside of Chicago. From a young age, he was inclined towards learning
about his religion and the Qur’an, which inspired him to join a full-time Hifdh program in the Northwest
Chicagoland area. In the late 90s, there were only two full time Hifdh programs in the entire state of Illinois, one in
the far Northwest suburbs and the other in the city of Chicago. At the age of 14, he completed his Hifdh and began
teaching Maktab at various Islamic centers. For many years, during the month of Ramadan, he regularly led the
Tarawīh prayers at American Islamic College.
During the last year of his high school, he began studying Urdu, Primary Farsi, Arabic Grammar, Arabic
Morphology and Literature under Mufti Mohammed Navalur Rahman and later studied Islamic philosophy of Imām
Ghazali, Ibn Arabi & Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi from him. He also studied advanced Tajwīd and Fiqh under other
scholars of Dar al-‘Ulūm Chicago. His interest in Tazkiya and self-reformation sparked after sitting in the Majālis of
Shaykh Dr. Tanvīr Ahmad Khan, a disciple of Hakīm al-Ummah Mawlānā Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi ر ح and one of the
initial students and senior successor of Mawlānā Masīhullah Khan ر ح.
Due to personal constraints, he could not continue his studies at Dar al-‘Ulūm Chicago, and went on to complete his
secular education and obtained Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mobile Programming from Columbia
College Chicago. After completing his education, initially he worked at various religious non-profit organizations in
the Chicagoland area. After gaining employment at one of the top tech giants in Silicon Valley, he left his hometown
of Chicago and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and four children. Currently he works full time
as a lead Site Reliability Engineer and also heads the committee of Masjid Furqaan Hayward. He continues his
religious training and mentorship under Shaykh Ahmad Sadiq Mehtar.