About the barakat trust

Director

Seif El Rashidi is an architectural historian with 20 years of expertise working on heritage preservation and managing projects related to promoting public engagement with heritage and culture. Seif was formerly the Project Manager of Layers of London (2016-2

Head of Finance and Operations

Madhavi is a qualified professional, a member of the Institute of Cost and Works accountants of India and CIMA Adv Dip MA. She has 20 years of experience working both in India and UK. During her training years she has worked with Indian Oil Corporation-Bombay,

Finance

Matthew Barnett is an accountant with experience in charities and nonprofits as well as businesses. In the four years he has been with The Barakat Trust, he has developed a strong interest in the countries and cultures in which The Barakat Trust operates.

Communications Coordinator

Thomas studied Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge (BA) and is now pursuing a Master's in Medieval Islamic History at the American University in Cairo. Previously, Thomas has helped The Barakat Trust organise its Heritage in Arabic (al-turā

Chairman

Interested in relations between Muslim and Christian societies in the medieval Mediterranean as manifested in material and visual culture. My research has focused upon the archaeology of the transition from late antiquity to early Islam in the Levant and, espe

Emeritus Professor

James Allan read his degree in classical Arabic at Oxford, and spent most of his career in the Ashmolean Museum as curator of the Islamic collections and latterly Keeper of Eastern Art. He also set up an Inter-faith Exhibition Service. For the last 6 years bef

Honorary Member

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Smithsonian Institute, Washington, USA

Faculty Tutor

Is interested in Persian illustrated manuscripts particularly those produced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under Mongol and Timurid rule. Other interests include the artistic interface of Eastern Christianity and Islam in the thirteenth and fourtee

Curator

I specialise in the Islamic Mediterranean, especially al-Andalus and the Maghrib, but more generally I am interested in material culture connections around the Mediterranean during the medieval period. I am interested in how people commission works of art and

Stephen Battle is an architect with 30 years professional experience managing conservation projects in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He started on his professional path in Zanzibar, where he worked on projects in the historic Stone Town. From 1998 to 2008,

University Lecturer in Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK. Interested in Islamic architecture; illustrated manuscripts; Sufi shrines; hagiography and historiography. ‘Sufi Shrines under the Ottomans’, in The Cambridge World History of Re

Dr Paul Wordsworth is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford specialising in the archaeology of the medieval Caucasus and Central Asia, with a particular interest on the northeastern fringes of the early Islamic world. He is currently directing two arch

Director of Projects at HERITΛGE (The Heritage Management Organization), Dr Maja Kominko holds a Doctorate in Archaeology from the University of Oxford. A Historian with a decade of academic experience at universities in the UK, Turkey, USA and Sweden, she ha

Head of the Southeast Asia section at the British Library in London, she works on Malay manuscripts, letters, documents and seals, and the art of the Islamic book in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean world. Recent publications include Malay seals from the I

Alison Ohta is the director of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She completed her doctoral thesis at SOAS, University of London, on bindings of the Mamluk period (1250–1516). She has lectured and published widely on the subject.

Soumyen Bandyopadhyay is the Sir James Stirling Chair in Architecture at the Liverpool School of Architecture (LSA), and Associate Dean for Research for the School of the Arts (SotA). He leads the University’s Heritage Research Institute and chairs the inter

Alison L. Gascoigne holds a Professorship in Archaeology at the University of Southampton, having gained her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests lie mainly in Egypt, with particular focus on the archaeology of urbanism from late antiquit

Alain Fouad George is IM Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture and a Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Oxford. He taught previously at the University of Edinburgh (2007-17) and the Université Saint Joseph in Beirut (2005-7). His research

Abir Tuqan, was born in Jaffa, Palestine and educated initially in Switzerland and later England. A member of Middle Temple, Inns of Court School of Law, London, Tuqan was called to the Bar in 1973 and later specialized in Islamic Law at the School of Oriental

Shahnaz Bagherzade was born in Iran, with a high school degree ‘Abitur’ from Germany. She holds an MPhil in Islamic Art & Architecture from Oxford University and supports various charities preserving the material culture of the Islamic world. She was one o

Founder

Tarik A. Alireza, was born in Cairo, raised and educated in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Switzerland and the USA. He completed a degree in Architecture at the School of Architecture and Fine Arts at the University of Southern California. In 1977, he established Tarik

Mohamed Ali Al Edrisi is a Saudi expert in architecture, exhibition design, and Islamic art whose four-decade career has influenced the development of cultural and architectural practice in Saudi Arabia and abroad. He studied for his Bachelor of Science in Bus

Rima Al-Safadi was raised and educated in Damascus, Syria graduating with a BA in English Literature & Civilisation from Damascus University. Rima brings a diverse range of skills and experience to her role as Trustee, having founded and managing various busin

Nawaf Al-Nassar, a graduate in Interior Architecture from the American University in Britain (1990), is the founder of 3N Jeddah and a key figure in Saudi design. He contributed to Design KSA, the first Saudi design magazine, and has participated in design eve

Mustafa Hussain has over two decades of financial experience helping clients to plan governance, succession and private wealth structures and solutions. He is Chair of the Board for the Accuro Group and is Managing Director of Accuro’s London office. He join

Founder

Hamida A. Alireza, was born in USA, raised and educated in Switzerland. In 1987, she founded The Barakat Trust, together with Shahnaz Bagherzade and Tarik Alireza. She has overseen the Trust’s evolution, funding more than 500 students in a range of specialis

Sara A. Alireza, was born in London, raised and educated in Saudi Arabia and the UK. Having graduated from The London School of Economics in industrial and business economics, Sara worked for Banque Baring Brothers, Switzerland as an analyst focusing on emergi

Faye Behbehani is an independent cultural and heritage consultant. She received her bachelor’s in Business Management and International Studies from Bentley College, USA, in 2003 and her master’s in the History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle

Rabya Alfadl was raised in Saudi Arabia and educated in the USA. She graduated in Psychology from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, and then completed a range of executive management and leadership courses and a Diploma in Behavioural Science at The London Sc