Our Faculty
Our teachers are at the core of what we do here at Tayseer Seminary.
Shaykh Hassan Lachheb
Dr. Hassan Lachheb is the founder and president of Tayseer seminary. He holds a Ph.D in Religious Studies from the University of Indiana, Bloomington, with a focus on theory of religion and Islamic studies, his research is interested in the intellectual history and religiosity of the Muslims in the Maghreb and Andalus. Dr. Lachheb graduated with honors from the prestigious seminary Dar Alhadith Alhassaniyya for Higher Islamic Studies in Rabat Morocco. He also studied in the Madrasa of Shaykh Abdullah ask-Talidi in Tangier Morocco where has extensively studied on a high level several disciplines including Principles of Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh), Arabic Grammar, Philology, and Literature. He has also received many ijazaat (licenses to teach) from prominent scholars in Hadith, Comparative Jurisprudence (fiqh), and the Sciences of Qur'an. He has studied under several of the foremost Islamic scholars in Morocco.
Ustadha Zaynab Ansari
Zaynab Ansari has served as a member of the full-time faculty of Tayseer Seminary since its inception in 2014 when she joined the Muslim Community of Knoxville in the pioneering role of women’s scholar-in-residence, one of the first women to serve in such a capacity in an Islamic institution in North America. With over 20 years of experience as a public speaker, facilitator of interfaith dialogue, youth mentor, and an instructor of the Islamic Sciences, Ustadha Zaynab is committed to reviving the Prophetic model of community and training the next generation of Muslim leaders, workers, and activists.
Ustadha Zaynab considers herself a lifelong student of traditional Islam and she was blessed to spend her formative years studying in Damascus, Syria with both male and female scholars of the Qur'an, Islamic law, theology, and spirituality. Prior to settling in Knoxville, Ustadha Zaynab was based in Atlanta, where she earned degrees in World History and Middle Eastern Studies from Georgia State University, and dedicated her free time to volunteering with the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta, which honored her with the Georgia 40 Under 40 Muslims award in 2016. In addition to her work at Tayseer Seminary, where she also serves on the board of directors, she is part of the faculty of the Ribaat Program, an online curriculum led by one of her teachers, Dr. Tamara Gray, a leading woman scholar of traditional Islam.
Dr. Michael Dann
Prior to his time at Tayseer, Dr. Dann’s educational pedigree includes serving as an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. in Religion at Princeton University in 2015, and his B.A. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2006. Dr. Dann studied the traditional Islamic sciences in Egypt with scholars from Al-Azhar University and in Morocco at Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University.
At the moment, Dr. Dann also serves as an instructor of Arabic for Fawakih Institute and has served Muslim communities in Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts in various capacities.
Ustadh Nadeem Siddiqi
Ustadh Nadeem Siddiqi grew up in Knoxville and has lived here since 1977. He graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in economics in 2002 and from Tayseer Seminary in 2016. He is a current board member of Annoor Academy, ACO, and Tayseer Seminary. He serves as adjunct faculty for Tayseer Seminary where he teaches a course in activism.
Ustadh Nadeem is a local investor and advisor to businesses ranging from healthcare, IT services, real estate, and hospitality industries.
