Taysir Kamil Ibrahim
Taysir Ibrahim (Taysīr Ibrāhīm) (تيسير كامل إبراهيم) was a professor of Islamic jurisprudence and its early history, and Dean of the Shari`a and Law Faculty at the Islamic University in Gaza. His life combined scholarship with community service: he was an active Muslim cleric who served as a preacher and as an arbitrator of disputes.
Dr. Ibrahim was born in Gaza on 23 August 1973. He received his bachelor’s degree in Islamic law from the Islamic University in Gaza in 1995, his master’s degree in jurisprudence from the same university, and later his doctorate in jurisprudence from the International Islamic University in Malaysia in 2012. He had also received a general education diploma from the Islamic University in Gaza, and a special education diploma from al-Aqsa University.
Dr. Ibrahim taught as a lecturer at the Faculty of Islamic Propagation at the Islamic University, as well as at the College of Companions and the Rabat College in Gaza. He headed the Department of Islamic Shari`a at the Islamic University of Gaza between 2012 and 2013. He was also the coordinator of the Faculty of Shari`a and Law at the university’s southern branch between 2007 and 2009 and again between 2013 and 2016. He was the Deputy Dean of the Islamic University’s southern branch from 2016 to 2017, and Dean of the Faculty of Shari`a and Law at the Islamic University from 2021 until the time of his death.
An active scholar, Dr. Ibrahim authored and co-authored some fifteen peer-reviewed papers in the field of Islamic law on topics ranging from Islamic legal reasoning to Islamic legal perspectives on war and worship. He taught courses on the principles of Islamic jurisprudence as well as specialized topics such as human rights, transactions, and theories of interest in Islamic law. He was also a public educator who often appeared on media programs on Islamic law and participated in curriculum development for Palestinian schools.
As a practicing jurist and cleric, Dr. Ibrahim served as Chief Justice for the Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine and frequently preached in mosques in Gaza. He also acted as the Shari`a arbitrator for alternative dispute resolution for the Palestine Scholars’ Association.
Dr. Ibrahim, age 50, was killed, along with his entire family, in an Israeli airstrike on al-Nusayrat Refugee Camp in central Gaza on 17 October 2023.