She is an affiliated scholar at Willamette University (where she has also served as assistant professor) and is Advisory Editor for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Law.
She holds an MA from the University of Chicago in Middle Eastern Studies and a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Michigan (where she studied under Dr. Sherman Abdul Hakeem Jackson and Dr. Barbara Metcalf).
She has studied with Muslim scholars in Jordan, the US and Canada, and is a founding member of the Sila Initiative. Born and raised in Chicago, she now lives with her husband Ibrahim Mansoor in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she continues to write and conduct research.
She studied traditional Islamic disciplines in Jordan and while there received several ijazas in Qur’anic recitation.
She received her ijaza in the Shatibiyyah with Mufti Umer Esmail, and she currently teaches the ten qira’at. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and children.
She subsequently began online studies in the Shariah sciences with Shaykh Faraz Rabbani and Ustadha Hedaya Hartford, followed by completion of an Alimah curriculum with various Hanafi scholars and muftis based in India and the United States.
She continues to study both online and in person with Islamic scholars such as Shaykh Nuh Keller, Ustadha Besa Krasniqi, and Shaykh Ashraf Muneeb. She currently teaches and resides in Chicago with her husband.
Past Instructors
In 1983, she traveled to Egypt to study Arabic, where she lived for three years. In 1986, she married her husband Nuh Ha Mim Keller and moved to Amman, Jordan.
She studied Hanafi Fiqh and hadith terminology with Sheikh Shuayb Arnaut; Hanafi Fiqh and ‘Aqida with Sheikh Ahmad al-Jammal; Tajwid with Sheikh Ibrahim Rumana; and for the last 10 years, she has been studying Tafsir, Arabic grammar, Balagha, and Islamic Inheritance with Sheikh ‘Ali Hani.
In 1992, she joined the Shadhili tariqa of Sheikh Abdur-Rahman ash-Shaghouri, and was his student until his death in 2004. At present, she studies and teaches, helps her husband in his translation projects, and the running of the Zawiya of Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili in Amman.
After spending two years studying with scholars in the US, she relocated to Amman, Jordan in 2003.
In Jordan, Noura has been studying Islamic sciences including Hanafi fiqh, Aqida, Arabic, Hadith and Tasawwuf with traditional scholars including Shaykh Nuh Keller, Shaykh Ashraf Muneeb, and Ustadha Besa Krasniqi.
“Practice humility until no one oppresses or belittles another.”
“That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.”
“Have taqwa (Godfearingness), and Allah will send you what is needed in your life.”