Moḥammad Asrar Ul Haq was born in Birmingham, England into a family of pious scholars well versed in the Sharī’ah and masters of the Naqshbandī and Qādrī Sufī Orders. He is the third son of Fadhīlat ush-Shaykh Muḥammad Habīb-Ur-Raḥmān, Maḥbūbi. Although born in Birmingham, he feels very much a Bradfordian after spending most of his life in the West Yorkshire city. He says it is as the Turkish saying goes, “it’s not where you’re born but where you are fed”.

Since childhood, Mohammad Asrar Ul Haq has watched his father serving people and teaching the beautiful religion. He has developed a significant three-fold relationship with a Shaykh who is father, teacher and spiritual guide. This wonderful relationship has influenced his life deeply and inspired him to tread a similar path in servitude of Allah, Most High, alone and to be blessed with the company of the Beloved, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, in the Hereafter.

He began his Islamic education from a very young age in the traditional setting of his father’s seminary, Šuffa tul-Islām. He memorised eleven ajza’ of the blessed Qurān before beginning basic Islamic studies in Urdu and Arabic. In his teenage years this education developed into the foundations of the formal Darse Niżāmī programme of Islamic Studies.

He studied the Darse Niżāmī programme primarily under the guidance of his illustrious father and also Maulānā Qarī Moḥammad Ramaḍan (Bradford), Muftī Moḥammad Suleman Rizvī (Rawalpindi), Professor Bashīr Aḥmed Siddīqī, Allah Almighty be pleased with him (Lahore), ‘Allāma Maulāna ‘Abdul Latīf (Dewsbury) and Maulāna Shafī’ Ur Raḥmān (Leeds).

He studied various sciences including Qurānic Exegesis, Prophetic Tradition, Ḥanafī Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Principles of Exegesis, Principles of Prophetic Tradition, Principles of Jurisprudence, the Prophetic Biography, Theology and Creed, Traditional Logic, Arabic Language, Urdu Language and Farsi Poetry.

He has been honoured to sit at the feet of many eminent scholars who visited his father at Šuffa tul-Islām and he has been privileged to have served them whilst learning from their excellent character. Many world-renowned scholars visited the seminary for the monthly gatherings enabling him to learn the art of compelling da’wa and propagating. Often some scholars would reside at Šuffa tul-Islām and refer to it as their home away from home. This presented a unique and rare opportunity to benefit from their persons. He particularly remembers the loving company of the late Justice Muftī Shujā’t ‘Alī Qādrī, Allah be pleased with him, ‘Allāma Ghulām Rasūl Sa’īdī, may Allah preserve him, the late Voice of Pakistan Sayyid Shabīr Ḥussain Shah Ḥāfẓabādī and the late Mujāhid and author Maulāna Zīa’ Ullāh Qādrī, Allah be pleased with them both.

Alongside the study of the traditional sacred sciences, Mohammad Asrar Ul Haq completed his university-based academia by gaining GCSEs, A-Levels in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, and in 2004 graduating from the University of Bradford with an Honours Degree in Medical Engineering.

During his university studies, he was actively involved in Šuffa tul-Islām’s supplementary school in both teaching and curriculum development. In 1996 he became the youngest editor of The Message Magazine, the bimonthly student journal of Šuffa tul-Islām; a post he held for 7 years. In this time he would also tour mosques in the surrounding cities delivering Islamic lectures and for da’wa. During this time he started a regular weekly study circle at Jāmi’a Masjid Bilāl in Leeds.

After graduation, in 2004, he set out to formally gain qualifications and experience in Arabic. He travelled to Egypt and enrolled at the University of Cairo, Giza for Arabic Language and then went on to the American University in Cairo (AUC) for the UN-certified Professional Certificate in Written Arabic Translation.

In the summer of 2006, after 2 years abroad, he returned to the UK and joined Bradford College as a part-time lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Department for Business and Accounting. The following year he lectured in the same department as a business lecturer on the BTEC National Diploma programmes with Islamic enrichment modules. During his employment at the College he studied for a teaching qualification and acquired QTLS status from the Leeds Metropolitan University, with a Post-Graduate Diploma in Post Compulsory Education and Training.

In the academic year 2007/8 he taught Islamic Studies as part of the GCSE Religious Education programme, as well as Introduction to Ḥadīth and Introduction to Fiqh at MA Institute, a highly-rated Bradford Muslim Secondary School.

In May 2007, he became the khatīb at Jāmi’a Masjid Bilāl, Leeds, delivering the Friday Sermon in English, Urdu and Arabic. He is still the khatīb at this mosque undertaking the Imam’s duties for the Friday prayers.

In September 2009, he was privileged to join the teaching scholars at  Šuffa tul-Islām as a colleague on the Darse Niżāmī Higher Islamic Studies programme – a programme very close to his heart. There he continues to teach modules in Tahfīz and Tajwīd, Introduction to Logic, Introduction to Arabic Language and Grammar, Prophetic Biography and Ḥanafi Inheritance Law. He has also taught a module in Principles of Ḥanafi Jurisprudence.

Working with colleagues at Ṣuffa tul-Islām and under the guidance of his eminent father, Mohammad Asrar Ul Haq, hopes to establish a model Islamic seminary that will produce socially and intellectually competent Islamic scholars of the highest standard, through honest and sincere teaching, nurturing, spiritual training, and a spirit of service to the creation of Allah, for His pleasure alone.

He regularly participates in religious programs nationally; lecturing, teaching, at speaking engagements, seminars, and also facilitating workshops. He has developed a 12-week tarbīyya course titled Purification of the Heart and also the Madrasa Teacher Training Program.

He has interpreted on numerous occasions for his father and also stepped in as interpreter for Shaykh Ḥusām ad-Dīn Farfūr, vice-rector of the Syria based Al-Fatih Islamic Institute, and Shaykh ‘Abdul Fattāḥ al-Bizm, during their visit to Ṣuffa tul-Islām in 2008. He has also co-translated on two books:

Al-Qalam Society. (2009). Q&A from Fatawa Rizwiyah – Purification & Salah (Vol. 1). (D. M. al-Azhari, Ed., & M. A. Sahibzada, Trans.) Nottingham, UK: Invitation Publishing House.

Al-Qalam Society. (2008). Selected Questions & Answers From Fatawa Rizvia (First ed.). (D. M. al-Azhari, Ed., & M. A. Sahibzada, Trans.) Nottingham, UK: Invitation Publications.

From May 2009 to May 2011 he was an Executive Board member of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB).

He has travelled to Damascus, Syria, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on numerous occasion and had the privilege of attending group sessions with world-renowned Dr Muḥammad Sa’īd Ramadān al-Būtī, Professor Wahba Mustafā al-Zuhaylī and Dr Nūruddīn ‘Itr, may Allah preserve them all.

In February 2011 he travelled to Turkey on the invitation of the FCO with a British Muslim Delegation, promoting the life of ordinary British Muslims to the Muslim majority country.

In April 2011 he began a personal blog with the intention to upload ideas for Friday Sermon topics for his many friends and colleagues who asked him to do so, and also to encourage him to translate and add commentary to Nūr ul-Yaqīn Fī Sīrat Sayyid il-Mursalīn (Beacon of Certainty), a book on the life of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, by the Egyptian Scholar Shaykh Moḥammad al-Khudarī.

His personal interests, after personal recitation of the blessed Qurān and Ḥadīth literature, includes reading general non-fiction in English, Arabic and Urdu, browsing the internet, world history, ethics, human psychology, cultures, traditions and customs, scientific and technological development, theology, and spirituality. He particularly likes listening to classical Islamic poetry in Urdu and Arabic, translating classical texts and modernising Islamic textbooks for adult education.

As well as spiritual wellbeing he is keen on physical wellbeing by regularly weight training, cardio training, scoring hat-tricks on the football pitch and launching sixes on the cricket field.

He lives in Bradford and has two daughters and a son.