Guernica 37 Chambers

Called to the Bar: 1999

Accredited Mediator since 2003

Qualified to accept Public Access instructions

Karim’s main area of practice is general commercial law, including sale of goods, international trade, and shipping law. He has appeared in the High Court and County Court in Chancery matters, including landlord and tenant, boundary disputes, resulting trusts, nuisance, easements, and adverse possession.

Karim has a particular expertise in Islamic commercial laws and retains a specialist library in the field. He is particularly familiar with Ottoman (The Mejelle), Egyptian, and UAE civil laws, and can provide expert opinions by arrangement. Notably, Karim has been an advisor (2013-14) and editor for the Qatar National Food Security Program (QNFSP). He has also advised in the past on Omani, Kuwaiti and Egyptian laws in matters relating to construction contract disputes. Accordingly, he retains a particular interest in public and private international laws.

Currently, Karim is an academic consultant and Senior Research Fellow (since 2005) at Tabah Foundation, Cairo, and founder, principal researcher and editor of the Classification of the Sciences Project.

He was also an appointed academic consultant (2009-2010) for the Living Traditions Programme at the Golden Web Foundation, Cambridge, in its research on Arid Lands Agriculture and concomitant legal water rights. Additionally, Karim is a project director of the Filaha Texts Project (filaha.org), a research initiative to catalogue, study and implement protocols of the Islamic Andalusian tradition of agronomy and its water rights.

Fluent in English, Arabic and French, with a working knowledge of Spanish

MA (RCA), MA (Oxon.), PhD (Cantab.).

1998 – Inner Temple Major Scholarship

1994-96 – Spalding Trust Award, E.G. Browne Fund Award (Cambridge University), E.G. Browne Fund Award (Pembroke College), Searle Fund Award.

1991 – Al-Tajir Trust Prize, Royal College of Art.

Karim read for a BA in Jurisprudence (2:1) at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and completed a doctorate in Islamic Law at Pembroke College, Cambridge, between 1994 and 1996.

Karim completed pupillage respectively at One Hare Court, Chambers of Lord Neill of Bladen QC, and subsequently on merger of Chambers with 13 Old Square, at Serle Court Chambers.

Prior to studying law, Karim trained and worked as a stonecarver and lettercutter, under the tutelage of David Kindersley and Dick Reid, and received an MA in sculpture in 1991 from the Royal College of Art. Most notably, he worked as a carver on the ongoing restoration of York Minster and Spencer House, and is an original member of Memorials by Artists, now the Lettering Arts Charity. Karim has exhibited his works at the Chelsea Physic Garden, Crafts Council Gallery, the Royal College of Art, Blickling Hall, West Dean, and at Oxford. He is also a permanent exhibitor at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire (https://www.stonespecialist.com/news/natural-stone-memorials/lettering-arts-trust-relaunch-art-memory-collection-grimsthorpe-castle).

Sample Lectures & Seminars

Karim has been invited to lecture inter alia at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the LSE, SOAS, Exeter University, the American University at Cairo, Mehmed Fatih University (Istanbul), Marmara University (Istanbul), INTBAU (Bilbao branch), House of Lords.

Appointed sometime lecturer at Dar al Fuqaha, Istanbul, since 2021.

Appointed sometime lecturer at Cambridge Muslim College since 2014, on Diploma Course for Imams.

Lecture delivered on Islamic Banking and Ottoman law at the Commonwealth Law Conference, London, 2005.

Chaired & convened seminar on the work of the contemporary Islamic scholar & Moroccan intellectual, Dr.Taha Abderrahmane, St Cross College, Oxford, 2008.

Formerly appointed as lecturer in English conflict of laws, international trade and bankruptcy at the cabinet of Meyrier Fayout Lacoste in Paris, 2003.

Sample Publications

“Fard al-Kifaya as the Juridical Foundation of the Islamic Social Apparatus.” Forthcoming February 2025, contracted with UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), London.

“Irrigation Practices in Valencia and the context of the Islamic Social Framework.” In Drechsler, W., Chafik, S., & Kattel, R., Islamic Public Value: Theory and Practice of Indigenous Cooperative Institutions, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, Forthcoming Dec. 2024.

Sayyida Fatima al Yashrutiyya: Daughter of Akka. Inspiral Books 2022.

The Anatomy of Knowledge and the Ontological Necessity of First Principles. Tabah Foundation 2021.

'Being Good': An Ontological View of Ethics. Kalam Research & Media (KRM) 2017.

The Vocational Society. Tabah Foundation, 2014.

Muhammad Shahrur’s ‘Cargo-Cult’: A Meditation on his Underlying Conceptual Framework Tabah Foundation, 2010.

The Roman Catholic Church’s Position on Islam after Vatican II, Tabah Foundation, 2008.