First Paragraph: Dr. Ṭāhā Jābir al-ʿAlwānī was born in Iraq in 1935. After completing secondary school there, he left for al-Azhar, the prestigious institution of religious higher learning in the Sunnī Islamic world. After he completed his bachelor’s degree in the College of Sharīʿah and Jurisprudence at al-Azhar, al-ʿAlwānī returned to Iraq and taught in the College of Islamic Sciences for six years. He also joined the military reserves there, rising to the rank of lieutenant, while additionally teaching at the Military Academy. Al-ʿAlwānī took advantage of his sojourn in Baghdad at that time and studied with some of the leading Iraqi scholars of Islam. After the Baʿth Party came to power in Iraq, al-ʿAlwānī found himself compelled to leave the country in 1969 and returned to Cairo. There he continued his studies at al-Azhar, completing his master’s and then his PhD degree in Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) in 1973.