Dr Imranali Panjwani

Dr Panjwani is the Head and Founder of Diverse Legal Consulting, a consultancy that specialises in country expert reports on Middle East & North Africa (MENA) for asylum seekers. Drawing upon his seminary and university studies, his work cuts across scriptural exegesis, jurisprudence, philosophy, logic and metaphysics. By re-examining the subject of the law, a critical evaluation of how laws are derived from religious and non-religious sources can take places. This also means broadening our notions of evidence to understand other legal systems better so that the dignity of minorities can be recognised.

In his spare time, he engages in interfaith dialogue in Muslim and faith communities worldwide and likes playing racket sports such as tennis, padel, pickleball and more and doing charity work. He enjoys spending time with family and when possible, escapes into the world of fantasy football and all other idiosyncratic creative outlets.

Awards

• Recipient of the national Spirit in the Community Award (for work with vulnerable groups – asylum seekers and palliative patients) at the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards 2025, Westminster, London.
• Recipient of the 'Excellent Teaching Award in Business and Law' at ARU's Made A Difference Awards 2022.
• Recipient of the 'Highly Commended Access to Justice' Award at the UK Diversity Legal Awards 2021.

• English
• Arabic
• Persian
• Gujarati

• Islamic law, jurisprudence and exegesis
• Logic and legal reasoning
• The rights of asylum seekers and minority communities
• The relationship between law, religion and spirituality
• Legal education
• Decolonisation

Areas of expertise

• Law
• Family Law
• Medical Law
• Islamic Law
• Immigration and Human rights
• Jurisprudence
• Scripture and Exegesis
• Logic and Legal Education
• Decolonisation

• Comparative Islamic and Western jurisprudence
• International human rights
• Jurisprudence

Imranali's current research projects include:

• REF Impact case study research for CAJI on access to justice for asylum seekers through a greater recognition of religious, cultural and linguistic evidence
• Chapters for edited collections published by De Gruyter Brill & Al-Mahdi Institute on Islamic Law, Family Law and Qur’anic Exegesis as well as a chapter for ARU CAJI’s edited collection on access to justice to be published by the University of London Press.

Imranali teaches the following modules at ARU:

• Family Law
• European Union Law
• Medical Law
• Civil Litigation (previously taught)
• Business Law (previously taught)
• English Legal System & Skills (previously taught)

• Post-Doctoral Research & Persian Language Studies: The Research Institute of Al-Mustafa International University (Jami'at al-Mustafa), Mashhad, Iran
• PhD in Theology & Religious Studies, King’s College London  
• PGDip in Academic Practice (Teaching Certificate), King’s College London
• PGDip in the Legal Practice Course (LPC), University of Law, Birmingham
• Seminary Training in Islamic Studies & Arabic, Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham
• LLB in Law, University of Sheffield

• Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
• Member, Electronic Immigration Network (EIN) Expert’s Directory
• Book reviewer, Religion (Taylor & Francis Journal)

• Principal Investigator & Project Lead – Creating a model of spiritual care for Muslim patients in palliative care (PEOLC44). Awarding Body: National Institute for Health & Care Research (NIRCH) – Applied Research Collaboration (ARC), East of England).
• Knowledge Exchange with Farleigh Hospice, Chelmsford during 2023-24 on end-of-life issues for palliative care patients, interfaith dialogue and training nurses on differing cultural and religious views of suffering.
• Keynote Speaker and CPD Trainer on ‘Islamic Family Law’ on 15th October 2025 at Mills & Reeve, Cambridge (top 50 UK & Europe law firm).

Consultancy

Country expert reports submitted to the UK Immigration & Asylum Tribunal and commented upon by judges (sample list):

• ‘Country Expert Report on Nigeria’ submitted to the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). Case Number: UI-2022-006531, 9 July 2024
• 'Country Expert Report on Saudi Arabia' submitted to the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: PA/04774/2019, 11 March 2020
• 'Country Expert Report on India' submitted to the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: HU/14446/2016, 29 April 2019

Edited Books

• Panjwani, S & Panjwani, I (ed). ‘The Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheries of East Africa: Their Quest for a New Socio-religious Identity (1860 – 1960)’ (Birmingham: Sun Behind the Clouds Publications, 2023). For a review of this book, see Professor Liyakat Takim’s review here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0048721X.2024.2348892
• Panjwani, I (ed)., The Shi’a of Samarra: The Heritage & Politics of a Community in Iraq (London: Bloomsbury 2012)

Journal articles

• Barry, C., Brodrick, R., Gupta, G., & Panjwani, I., ‘Palliative sedation at the end of life: Practical and ethical considerations’, Clinical Medicine, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Elsevier,  ISSN: 1470-2118, (2025), Vol: 25, Issue: 4.
• Panjwani, I., ‘The importance of incorporating religious, cultural and linguistic evidence in UK immigration procedures: an analysis of the semiotic codes of asylum seekers’, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law – Special Issue: Subjectivities & Religion (Springer), (2024), 37:1.
• Panjwani, I., ‘Where law, politics, scripture and theology intersect: an exegetical examination of 49:13 in the Qur’an in light of India’s right-wing legislation and policies against Muslims’,The Round Table (Taylor & Francis), (2023), 112:5, 481-494.
• Panjwani, I., 'Book Review: Preserving Islamic Tradition: Abu Nasr Qursawi and the beginnings of modern reformism by Nathan Spannaus', Religion (2022).
• Panjwani, I., ‘The ignored heritage of Western law: the historical and contemporary role of Islamic law in shaping law schools’, The Law Teacher (Taylor & Francis), (2020), 54:4, 562-577.
• Panjwani, I. (2017) 'Book Review: Shari'a in the Modern Era: Muslim Minorities Jurisprudence by Iyad Zahalka',American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 34(1), pp. 114-118.
• Panjwani, I. (2013) 'Book Review: Bibliographical Discourse Analysis – 4 Volume Set: The Western Academic Perspective on Islam, Muslims and Islamic Countries (1949–2009) by Saied Reza Ameli', Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, VI(4), pp. 500-505.

Chapters

• ‘The Role of Islamic Law in Shaping Law Schools’, in Adebisi, F (ed)., Decolonisation and the Law School: Dreaming Beyond Aesthetic Changes to the Curriculum (Oxford: Routledge, 2025), pp. 94-110.
• ‘Interpreting history, human struggle and the Qur’anic spirit of reflection on the past’ in Panjwani I (ed)., The Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheries of East Africa: Their Quest for a New Socio-religious Identity (1860 – 1960) (Birmingham: Sun Behind the Clouds Publications, 2023): 1-21.
• Co-author with Bagheri Noaparast, Khosrow, ‘Islamic social and moral education. A comparative study with the Western view’ - in: Berndt, Constanze [Hrsg.]; Häcker, Thomas [Hrsg.]; Walm, Maik [Hrsg.]: Ethik in pädagogischen Beziehungen (Bad Heilbrunn : Verlag Julius Klinkhardt 2022): 65-76
• Panjwani, I. (2020) 'From Fair Hearing to Fair Tech Hearing: Access to Justice in Immigration & Asylum Cases'. In: Chishti, S., Adams Bhatti, S. A., Datoo, A. and Indjic, D., The LegalTech Book. New Jersey: Wiley, pp.193-196.
• Panjwani, I. (2019) 'From Theory to Practice: The Role of the Subject in the Derivation of Rulings and Its Potential in Creating a System of Case Law for the Operation of Shīʿī Law’ in Bhojani,'. In: Bohlander, A., de Rooij, L. and Bohlander, M. (2019) Contemporary Discussions in Shi‘i Legal Theory. Leiden: Brill.
• Panjwani, I. (2017) 'Challenges in Teaching Islamic Studies at Universities: The Problem of Streamlining Islam for Undergraduates'. In: Hwang, A. and Pugliese, M. (Eds.) (2017) Teaching Interreligious Encounters - American Academy of Religion’s Teaching Religious Studies Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 117-135.

Entries

• Panjwani, I. (2019) 'Bahrain'. In Merskin, D. (Ed)., The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media & Society(Los Angeles: Sage Publications).
• Panjwani, I. (2017), ‘Ali b. Abi Talib’, ‘Ghaybah’, ‘Hadith’, ‘Husayn’, ‘Ilm’, ‘Ismah’, ‘Ithna-Ashariyyah’, ‘Ja’far al-Sadiq’, ‘Mahdi’, ‘Repent’, ‘Qur’an’ and ‘Yazid’, in Cakmak, C (ed)., Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopaedia - 4 volumes (California: ABC-CLIO, 2017)
• Panjwani, I. (2014) 'Soul'. In: Kalin, I., Ayduz, S. and Dagli, C. (Eds). (2014) The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Science and Technology in Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 267-273.

Submissions to the UK Parliament

• Greenfields, M., Dagilyte, E., Gillin, N., Radley, C., Panjwani, I., Paraskevopoulou, A., Caddick, N. and Smith, D. (2022) 'Submission to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee Committee's Enquiry in Family Migration', 7.2: The Afghan Citizens' Resettlement Scheme (ARCS), 15 September 2022.

• ‘Human Trafficking of Young Albanian Males to the UK’, EUROCRIM conference, The American College of Greece, Athens, 3-6 September 2025
• ‘A Lacuna in Shi’i Legal Theory: Human Experience’, Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, 17-18 July 2025
• ‘Creative ways to discuss race, gender, identity and politics in the classroom’, ARU Engage Conference, 24 June 2025
• ‘Was the Imami socio-political model ever conceived as a ‘minority’?’, Communal Organization and Coexistence in Shiʿism and Ibadism, International Symposium, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, 12-14 June 2025
• ‘An Evaluation of the Rationalist Hermeneutical Approach in Qur’anic Exegeses’, Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, 14-15 April 2025
• ‘The impact of AI on faith and humanity’, Artificial Intelligence and Faith conference, Abrar House, London, 11^th September 2023
• ‘An evaluation of Qaidat al-Firash (the rule of the wedlock) in Islamic & English law’, Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, 6-7 July 2023
• ‘Fostering EDI in the classroom’, ARU Learning & Teaching Conference, ARU Cambridge, 3^rd June 2024
• ‘Decolonisation and the role of logic in teaching law’, ARU’s Engage Conference, 28^th June 2023
• ‘Interpreting history and human struggle: the migration of the Khoja Shi’a Ithna Asheries from India to East-Africa’, AHSS Research Conference, ARU Cambridge, 22^nd June 2023
• ‘The importance of religious, cultural and linguistic evidence in immigration and asylum cases’, 23^rd International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law held at Pontificia Università Antonianum, Rome, 25^th May 2023
• ‘The Verses of Law in the Qur’an’, Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, 27^th April 2023
• ‘The importance of understanding religious and cultural linguistic terms in asylum claims’, Centre for Access to Justice & Inclusion Research Series, 22^nd February 2023
• ‘The Need for a Language Database: How Asylum Seekers become Passive Participants in Formulating their Identities in a Democratic Society’, Participation through Language: Actors, Practices, Ideologies, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, 25^th – 26 March 2021
• ‘The Ignored Heritage of Western Law: Islamic Law’, Decolonisation of Law conference, University of Bristol, 13 September 2019
• ‘An Evaluation of the Chapter of Legal Judgement in Islamic Law’, University of Copenhagen – Nordic Mosques Research Network held in Gotenburg, Sweden, 21-23 August 2019
• ‘A Critical Examination of Nafaqah (maintenance) in Islamic Law’, Multiple Materialities in Muslim Marriages, University of Amsterdam, 13-14 June 2019

• 'The Creation of Minority Case Law: A Possible Solution for the Recognition of Muslim Refugee Rights in European Countries’ (Muslim minorities and the refugee crisis in Europe. Narratives and policy responses. SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland. Organised by Erasmus+: Programme of the European Union, 8–9 November 2018).
• 'Broadening the Role of Imams: Imam as Key Brokers between Muslim & Non-Muslim Communities’ (Brokerage in Diverse Europe Workshop. Organised by The Open University/Göttingen University, Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Council for European Studies held in London, 12-13 Jan 18).
• 'Case Law as a Solution for Reclaiming Minority Rights & Identities’ (Islamic Human Rights Commission & Universal Justice Network Conference, Penang, Malaysia, 25-26 October 2016).
• 'Constructing a Framework for Human Dignity in Islam: The Thought of Zayn al-Abidin’ (Exploring the Meaning & Application of Human Dignity in Islam, Imam Hasan Centre, Sydney, 16-17 July 2016).
• 'From Theory to Practice: The Relevance of English Case Law in Shi'i Jurisprudence’ (Symposium on Shi'a Jurisprudence, Al-Mahdi Institute & Durham University, Durham University, 16–18 August 2015).
• 'A Lacuna in Shi'i Legal Theory: The Role of the Subject in the Derivation of Law’ (Research Institute of Al-Mustafa International University, Mashhad, 7 June 2015).

Imranali has appeared in online, local and international news. Some of his recent press coverage includes:

• Interview with Dr. Imranali Panjwani upon receiving the national Spirit in the Community award at the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards 2025, 11 March 2025
• ‘Legal scholar Panjwani wins GG2 Award for championing asylum seekers & community justice’, The Muslim News, 12 June 2025
• ‘Case for diversity is proven and essential for collective prosperity’, Eastern Eye, 11 March 2025
• Introduction to ARU’s Springpod Law Series on Family Law. (2023)
• Video introducing edited book, ‘The Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheries of East Africa: Their Quest for a New Socio-religious Identity (1860 – 1960)’ (2022)
• 'What is the purpose of law?' ARU, September 2021
• Interview with Chelmsford Community Radio on the Afghanistan Crisis, August 2021.
• ‘Breaking barriers through our shared history: Islam's role in the English Enlightenment’, ARU Interfaith Week, 12 November 2020: 
• Islamic centre donates Anzac cash after Sydney Council denied $5000 grant for Dawn Service, The Daily Telegraph, 24 March 2017.
• You are doing what ISIL wants Hanson slammed over latest Islam 'disease' comments', SBS News, 24 March 2017.
• World Islamic Symposium - Exploring the Meaning & Application of Human Dignity in Islam', Imam Hasan Centre, Sydney, Hills News, 21 July 2016.