He is a board member of the British Muslim Research Centre, and also the Ethnic Minorities Foundation.

He is a governor of International Students House; president of The Little Foundation; chairman of The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, and is a vice-president of the Friends of the British Library.

In February 2007, it was announced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission that he will be made a life peer and will sit as a Crossbencher.

[5] The peerage was gazetted on 27 March 2007 as Baron Hameed, of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden.

He is married to Dr Ghazala Afzal, who was appointed High Sheriff of Greater London for 2015–16.