About the Author: Dato' Prof. Afifi al-Akiti is the Kuwait Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Lecturer in Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Theology. He is also a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Dato' Afifi is trained as a theologian and philologist in both the Islamic and Western traditions: educated initially at the feet of the ulema of the Muslim world. His areas of expertise are Islamic theology, philosophy and science. He has worked on several BBC documentaries, including the award-winning Science and Islam(2009). In 2010 he was made a Member of the Ulama Council of Malaysia and elected into the Privy Council of the state, the Dewan Negara, constitutionally as a Life Peer. Since 2010, Dato' Dr Afifi has been listed in The Muslim 500: The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims.
Dr. Aasim I. Padela is the Professor of Emergency Medicine, Bioethics, and Humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He also directs the Initiative on Islam and Medicine, an independent non-profit educational and research center. Dr. Padela is a clinician-researcher with scholarly foci at the intersections of healthcare, bioethics, and religion. Using Muslim Americans and Islam as a model, he studies how (i) religion impacts patient health behaviors and healthcare experiences, (ii) informs the professional identities and workplace experiences of clinicians, and (iii) furnishes bioethical guidance to patients, providers, policy-makers, and religious leaders. Dr. Padela holds an MD from Weill Cornell Medical College, completed residency in emergency medicine at the University of Rochester, and received an MSc in Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan. Prior to that, he received Bachelor's degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Classical Arabic and Literature from the University of Rochester. His Islamic studies expertise comes from part-time seminary studies during secondary school, and tutorials with traditionally-trained Islamic authorities. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, serves in an editorial capacity for the Encyclopedia of Islamic Bioethics, American Journal of Bioethics, BMC Medical Ethics, Global Bioethics, the International Journal of Islam, BETIM Journal of Medical Humanities, and TAHFIM Journal of Islam and the Contemporary World. His work and expert commentary has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, National Public Radio, BBC, and CNN. His next book, Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics, is forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press in early 2021.
