Haitham al-Haddad gained a PhD at SOAS, University of London[9] and is a Saudi-trained Imam.[10] In Medina he studied with a student of the influential Salafi scholar ibn al Uthaymeen, while he also obtained a civil engineering degree in Sudan.[11] His PhD thesis from SOAS, submitted in 2010, was on Islamic law and entitled "A critical analysis of selected aspects of Sunni Muslim minority fiqh, with particular reference to contemporary Britain."[12]