M. Ali Lakhani was born in England in 1955. He was educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, before reading law at Cambridge, and being called to the Bar in British Columbia, where he has practiced primarily as a barrister since 1979. In 1998, Ali founded the traditionalist journal, Sacred Web, with the focus of identifying the “first principles” of tradition and exploring their relevance to the issues of modernity. Sacred Web (appearing in print bi-annually, and with a web site at www.sacredweb.com) is now regarded as one of the pre-eminent traditionalist journals in the English language, and has included essays by the foremost contemporary traditionalist writers, as well as by several prominent religious scholars and writers sympathetic to tradition. In the words of Professor Nasr, “Along with Sophia, Sacred Web is the most important journal in the English language devoted to the study of tradition."

In 2001, Ali was invited to address the International Congress on Imam ‘Ali in Iran, where he presented his essay on the “Metaphysics of Human Governance”. That essay, which dealt with the teachings of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib on Truth and Justice, garnered the First Prize in English at the conference, and was awarded at a special ceremony held in Tehran in March 2002. A revised version of the essay was included in the anthology, The Sacred Foundations of Justice in Islam, co-published by World Wisdom Books and Sacred Web Publishing, 2006.

Books

The Sacred Foundations of Justice, (World Wisdom, 2006), (contributed essay)

The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity, (World Wisdom, 2005)