Abu-Abdullah Adelabu

Abdul-Fattah Abu-Abdullah Taiye Ejire Adelabu FRSA or simply Sheikh Adelabu , also known as Al-Afriqi or Shaykh Al-Afriqi is a Nigerian-British Muslim scholar, writer, academic, publisher and cleric from Osogbo, the capital city of Osun State, Nigeria.

Adelabu studied Arabic and Islamic studies in Damascus, Syria, and acquired a post-graduate diploma, Master's degree, and Ph.D.

Adelabu received mid-1990's by influential Syrian officials in Damascus to discuss his ideas and services for African students and stranded migrants.

In the United Kingdom Adelabu was a researcher in Arabic and Islamic studies in Oxford, Cambridge and London in the late 1990s. A scholar of Islamic and Arabic studies as well as a linguist, jurist and lecturer, Adelabu is the founder and first president of and in London where he lectures on Arabic and Islamic studies.

Adelabu founded the African Muslim portal EsinIslam.Com and IslamAfrica.Com, both of which are administered and directed by his wife as the director and editor-in-chief, with management by volunteers from the students and followers of Adelabu, especially at and its Islamic College in London.

Da’wah activities of the African academic include serving as an Imam Khatib previously as Kuwaiti cultural attaché London, working as Islamic columnist for the Libyan Arabic daily newspaper Al-Arab International in London, and serving as the first Chief Imam and Chief Missioner for the Islamic Youth League of Nigeria, Abuja.

In the UK, Adelabu's educational and community contributions include appointments as a school governor in several boards, schools and academies in London where he was school parent governors' ambassador and representative at Westminster City Council sitting 2013 on the children and community services policy and scrutiny committee, as well as serving as vice chair of tri-borough school forums for Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea RBKC, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham LBHF and Westminster City.

In Syria Adelabu was a postgraduate in Damascus in the early 1990s when Syria reviewed its national security after the Oslo Accords. Syria, like many other countries around the world, witnessed during this period, a flood of refugees from war troubled nations like Somalia, the arrival of people from Algeria during the civil war, resettlement of Palestinians as well as other African migration for many other reasons. As a delegate of the African Students Union and general secretary of the West African Students' Union in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Adelabu visited prisons and hospitals during the time when over 10,000 African migrants had been killed, jailed, or wounded in their adventures to reach the Middle-East, many for sanctuary and others to get to Europe for what they had expected to be a better life.

Horrified at the number of unknown or unclaimed dead among the immigrant prisoners and their wounded countrymen, women, and children in the hospitals, Adelabu formed a group of volunteer African students to help. He received huge support from the president of the and chancellor of the , Abdullatif Salih al-Farfur, and from the dean of postgraduate school at the university, Shawkiy Abu Khalil, the dean of the faculty of literature - both signatories to the fellowship at the Syrian Scientific Academy.

Abdul Qader Arnaoot, Shawkiy Abu Khalil, Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti, Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, Abdul-Latif Salih Al-Farfur, Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen, Wahbah al-Zuhayli, Shuaib Al Arna'ut, , Muhammad Said Al-Qasimi. Based in London, Adelabu's works and initiatives pioneering teachings and publications of his teachers and mentors like these have led many to credit the Nigeria-born British Syria graduate with the continued spread of (esp. Salafi) Islam in Nigeria and other countries around the world today.