Capturing Imagination, the Beauty of Qur'anic Story

Luqman, a British African American, specialised in the languages (Arabic, Persian and Urdu), literature and cultures of the Middle East and the Indian Sub-continent. He then spent a decade as a linguist, writer/translator before serving for 3 years as programmes manager for a London-based humanitarian NGO where he raised funds from European GO’s and NGO’s in order to deliver humanitarian projects for refugees in the Middle East with DFID and UNHCR.

In 1997, Luqman co-founded Khayaal, the first professional theatre company dedicated to the exploration of classic Muslim literature through contemporary stagecraft as a means of fostering greater intercultural and interfaith engagement and understanding. He adapted and produced Khayaal’s award-winning debut production, Conference of the Birds, in London in 1998. He went on to pioneer the adaptation of the works of an array of Muslim litterateurs as well as folktales from African, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Persian and Urdu cultures, staging these works at The Globe’s Shakespeare and Islam Season (2004) and at The British Museum’s critically acclaimed Hajj Exhibition (2012) and its Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World launch events (2018) as well as in theatres, corporations, schools and communities throughout the UK and beyond (Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Switzerland, UAE and USA).

Luqman is currently working to nurture an inclusive humanitarian discourse of story and dream in Muslim communities and between those communities and wider society through Khayaal’s national on-demand Theatre-without-Walls programme that includes adaptations of wisdom tales from Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism while also developing the company’s next medium scale production exploring the intersection of Britain and Islam in the story of coffee.