Farhat Naseem Hashmi (; born December 22, 1957) is a Pakistani-Canadian Islamic scholar, Muslim television preacher, and the founder of Al-Huda Institute. She holds a PhD degree in Islamic studies from the University of Glasgow, Scotland and was formerly a lecturer and assistant professor at the Faculty of Usul-al-Din at International Islamic University, Islamabad. Hashmi founded Al-Huda International Welfare Foundation in 1994. The foundation started a number of schools to teach the Quran and Hadith to women in order to "help women become better observant Muslims by helping them understand the Quran". The foundation now runs a network of schools, seminaries and social welfare projects. In 2004, the foundation established the Al-Huda Institute in Mississauga (Toronto area), Ontario, Canada. This institute offers courses on exegesis of the Quran and Hadith and attracts students from a number of foreign countries such as Australia. She has gained popularity as a feminist scholar both in Pakistan and abroad, as evidenced by crowds of up to ten thousand that attend her religious lessons, called dars : the number of women who got a diploma or certificate are estimated to be around 15,000 while those who followed her courses without formally enrolling are even more numerous. Most followers come from liberal, literate and modern backgrounds; and most are women. She has stated that her mission is to bring a renewal in Islam, through better understanding of the core scriptures. In contrast to rigid and confrontational styles of proselytising, Hashmi has emphasized the need for her students to engage in voluntarily educating others through their examples. Early life and education Farhat Hashmi was born in Sargodha, Punjab, on December 22, 1957. Her father, Abdur Rehman Hashmi, was a Muslim scholar, and the local leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. She was educated at a local school; then studied at the Government College for women Sargodha and ultimately completed her Master's degree in Arabic Language from the University of Punjab, Lahore. Her religious education occurred at her home where she was taught the tenets of Islam by her father. She married a fellow scholar of Hadith Muhammad Idrees Zubair and the couple took up posts of lecturers at the International Islamic University (IIU), Islamabad. Soon after they moved to Scotland where they enrolled in the doctorate programme of Islamic studies. During this time, they both travelled to Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. She emigrated to Canada