Fundraising and consultations followed, and senior figures from the University of Cambridge such as Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard and Regius Professor of Divinity David F. Ford offered advice, as well as Muslim scholars such as Zaid Shakir, founder of Zaytuna College.

[8] He has consistently been included in The Muslim 500 list published annually by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.

[12] In its inaugural year it hosted a handful of students[13] and was temporarily based at the University of Cambridge's Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology while searching for a permanent home.

In 2015, it purchased with a loan a large adjacent building at 20 Cambridge Place, which will be the core of the teaching and resources provision for the BA and MA programmes.

[18] He is also considered to be one of "the world’s five hundred most influential Muslims," with his listing in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions of The Muslim 500 stating that "he weaves together classical Islamic knowledge and methodologies and the source-critical Western historical method to make innovative yet carefully reasoned sense of complex historical issues that are still important in today’s world.

[9] Students take courses on a wide range of subjects including philosophy, world religions, western art, international affairs and British constitutional history.

In addition to classical Islamic text study, a range of contemporary disciplines are also taught, including Western history, philosophy, and science, and the knowledge of non-Muslim religions.