Nuh Ha Mim Keller

Nuh Ha Mim Keller (born 1954) is an American Islamic scholar, teacher and author who lives in Amman. He is a translator of a number of Islamic books.
Life and scholarship
Keller studied philosophy and Arabic at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Los Angeles. Keller converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism in 1977. He has cited Islamic philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr's writings as one of the reasons for his conversion to Islam.
He then began a prolonged study of the Islamic sciences with prominent scholars in Syria and Jordan and was authorized as a shaykh in 1996.
He joined the Shadhili Sufi order, becoming a disciple of the Sufi poet Sheikh ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri of Damascus (from whom he received his authorization) from 1982 until his death in 2004.
His English translation of Umdat al-Salik, Reliance of the Traveller, (Sunna Books, 1991) is a Shafi'i manual of Shariah. It is the first Islamic legal work in a European language to receive the certification of Al-Azhar University.
Keller released a translation of the Quran titled The Quran Beheld in 2022 which strives to provide readers with a unique sense of the high eloquence and beauty of the Quran while also maintaining the linguistic and rhetorical accuracy. In the translator's own words, "Seven key areas of meaning" were "neglected by previous translations. Such gaps result in crucial elements of the Quran’s themes, logic, arguments, message, and meanings being lost. The Quran Beheld thus uncovers matters of Arabic meaning in the Quran for the first time in English."
Keller has also written numerous articles and was a regular contributor to Islamica Magazine and the website masud.co.uk.
Currently, Keller lives in Amman, Jordan, where he established a zawiya (seminary) in the early 2000s. At its height, the community attending the institution is believed to have amounted to around 60 families. However, following Keller's ordering the closure of a community school in light of an internal abuse investigation, the size of the community shrank to around 20 families, according to former members.
He is married to Besa Krasniqi, a scholar who is the daughter of Mazhar Krasniqi.
Works
Author
Evolution Theory and Islam: Letter to Suleman Ali, 1999.
The Concept of Bidʻa in the Islamic Shariʻa, 1999.
The Shadhili Tariqa: Notes from the Hashimi-Darqawi Order of the Tariqa of Imam Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, 1999.
Port in a Storm: A Fiqh Solution to the Qibla of North America, 2001.
Becoming Muslim, 2001.
Sufism and Islam, 2002.
Sea Without Shore: A Manual of the Sufi Path, 2011.
Translator
Yaḥyā Ibn-Šaraf an-Nawawī, Al-Nawawi's Manual of Islam (Maqāṣid), 1996 (latest edition in 2009).
Aḥmad Ibn-an-Naqīb al-Miṣrī, Reliance of the Traveller : A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (ʻUmdat al-salik), 1994 (latest edition in 2015).
The Quran Beheld: An English Translation from the Arabic, 2022.
References
Place of birth missing (living people)
1954 births
20th-century scholars
21st-century scholars
Asharis
Sunni Sufis
American Sufis
Shafi'i fiqh scholars
American former Christians
Converts to Sunni Islam from Catholicism
American expatriates in Jordan
Living people
Shadhili order
People from Amman
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
University of Chicago alumni
20th-century American translators
21st-century American translators
Supporters of Ibn Arabi