Dr. Azizah Y. al-Hibri is the founder of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights. She is also Professor Emerita at the University of Richmond School of Law. Dr. al-Hibri is the first Muslim woman to become tenured in an American law school. She is also a former professor of Philosophy, and founding editor of Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy.

In the 1980’s, Dr. al-Hibri began her long journey of developing a gender-equitable Islamic jurisprudence on women’s rights, addressing issues such as the marriage contract, and critiques of personal status codes of select Muslim countries. In the 1990’s she became concerned about issues of justice and democracy in a comparative constitutional context. She shared her perspectives on all these issues at speaking engagements throughout Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, North Africa, and the United States.

Dr. al-Hibri was a signatory to the Marrakesh Declaration (2016) and the Washington Declaration (2017) asserting freedom of conscience for religious minorities in Muslim countries. She was a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2011-13), a Library of Congress Scholar-in-Residence, a Fulbright scholar (2001), and a National Humanities Center scholar (2000-2001).

Dr. al-Hibri’s books include The Islamic Worldview; Deontic Logic; and Technology and Human Affairs (co-ed.) Her recent articles, published mainly in law journals, include An Islamic Perspective on Domestic Violence; Redefining Muslim Women's Roles in the Next Century; Muslim Women's Rights in the Global Village: Opportunities and Challenges; Islamic and American Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities or a History of Borrowing?; On Being a Muslim Corporate Lawyer; and Divine Justice and the Human Order: An Islamic Perspective. Many of Dr. al-Hibri’s numerous articles can be found on this website, and at her personal website (azizahalhibri.com). Most recently, she has become interested in writing about the Islamic worldview on such matters as the environment and social justice.

Dr. al-Hibri received many awards, including the Virginia First Freedom Award, presented in 2007 by the Council for America’s First Freedom, and the Life Time
Achievement Award in 2009 from the Journal of Law & Religion. She was also awarded the Dr. Betty Shabazz Recognition Award, by Women in Islam for her work and service to the community (2006). Dr. al-Hibri was the first American woman invited to deliver a Dars Hassani in Morocco, invited and attended by King Muhammad VI and televised to the public (2016). Dr. al-Hibri was recognized for her work in the Congressional Record (2015), nominated as a Woman Inspiring Change, at Harvard University School of Law, (2014). Most recently, she joined the board of trustees of Al-Makassed University in Beirut, Lebanon, her place of birth.