JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s Dr. Mishaal bin Fahm Al-Salami is the elected president of the Arab Parliament. 

Al-Salami succeeded UAE’s Ahmed Al-Jarwan, who held the position for two consecutive terms, in December 2016. 

Al-Salami was born in Makkah in 1974. He studied at the Department of Islamic Studies at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah and received his bachelor’s degree with honors. He received his master’s degree in comparative thought from the Middle East Studies department of the University of Exeter. Subsequently, he did his Ph.D. from the same university in comparative jurisprudence in 2002. 

Al-Salami has been a member of the Arab Parliament since 2013, and a member of the Saudi Shoura Council since 2009.  He started his academic career as a lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies at the King Abdulaziz University in 1997. He was promoted to the positions of assistant professor and then associate professor.

He also held several positions at King Abdul Aziz University such as secretary and member of the restructuring committee of Health Sciences Colleges, member of the coordinating council of King Abdulaziz University and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a member of the postgraduate studies plan developing committee at the Department of Islamic Studies.

During his studies in the UK, he was the supervisor of Saudi students clubs in Wales and southwestern Britain in 2000-2001, the editor in chief of the English-language journal of the Saudi Student Club, Exeter, UK, and the president of the club between 1999 and 2001. Al-Salami delivered several seminars at universities around the world. His papers have been published in research journals. He is also an author of a book “The West and Islam: Western Liberal Democracy Versus the System of Shura.”