I was born in 1980 in the UAE to Palestinian parents, my father being from the Gaza Strip, and my mother originally from Jaffa but among those who settled in Gaza after the Nakbeh. I was educated in the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, qualified as a medical doctor from St Bartholomew's and The Royal London School of Medicine in 2005, and have worked in a number of medical and surgical specialties since qualification. I am currently training to become a general practitioner. I also hold a bachelors' degree in neuroscience from the University of London (2004).

Although I have never lived in Palestine, and have visited it only once in my entire life, as a three year old child, I have always been deeply immersed in the Palestinian problem, but my philosophical interests arose first after I turned fifteen. I have never belonged to any political movement or ‘ism', and detest all sorts of labels, preferring instead to regard myself as an ordinary human being with only a desire for the truth. I certainly am not a Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian or Jew, and have resisted all temptations to become a follower of ‘traditional Islam' as we have it taught today by many institutes. I believe, in a manner analogous to Martin Gardner, the American mathematician and philosopher, that one can drop out of ‘traditional Islam', the Islam of the beard and the jilbab, and the thoughtless recital of religious phrases and dogmatism, while at the same time holding the strongest belief in a merciful God, the purity of the word of God and the superiority of the Prophet Muhammad over all men. I also believe that "such a faith, unburdened by strange dogmas", is truer to the heart of what the Prophet Muhammad and all the great prophets taught, than what the traditional books and most of the current ‘scholars of Islam' state. Like Gardner believes that "if Jesus were to return to earth today he would not call himself a Christian", I believe that if the Prophet Muhammad were to return to earth today he would dissociate himself from much that is regarded as ‘Islamic' today. I would like to regard myself as a follower of the quintessence of 'submission to God', AKA Islam, with the aim of becoming a quintessential Muslim, with the utmost respect for reason and science, and the utmost freedom from myth, blind indoctrination and superstition; one who is happy to acquire knowledge and wisdom from everywhere and anywhere, in accordance with the reported statement of the prophet Muhammad,, "Wisdom is like a precious commodity that is lost. A believer must always be in search of it. Wherever he finds it, he must act upon what it dictates"; one who has nothing to fear from any truth, science or wisdom, because all such things emanate from His Beautiful Names in all their glory. I believe that there is nothing holy, nothing that is not liable to constructive criticism, except the Word of God.

I would like to regard myself as a member of the same philosophical school as Bertrand Russell, the same political school as Edward Said, and the same religious school as the same school as that of Muhammad Al-Ghazzali, Mustafa Mahmood, Muhammad Izzat Darwaza, Mohammed Shahroor and others like them, who do not sacrifice reason for revelation, and believe the two cannot be seperated. and am the biggest fan of the great scientists and mathematicians who have graced the planet - Isaac Newton, Leonard Euler, James Clerk Maxwell and others.