Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan.[2] The family moved from PakistantoEngland in 1965 when she was two years old. Her father was a psychiatrist and moved to England to carry out post-graduate work in Cambridge. His work eventually took the family to Huddersfield when he gained a substantive job. They lived in four successive houses in Huddersfield, moving partly because the family expanded from four to six, and finally into a 1930s detached house in a relatively prosperous area near the town centre. The household was very literary and there were many books in the house. Urdu was generally spoken at home, and so the children became bilingual. Her father also spoke Arabic and worked in Saudi Arabia for a few years, where he was visited by Siddiqui at the age of about 18 together with her sister.[8]
Siddiqui took her Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and French at the University of Leeds (graduating in 1984), and her Master of Arts in Middle-Eastern Studies and PhD in Classical Islamic Law at the University of Manchester (graduating in 1986 and 1992 respectively). She served as a member of the Advisory Boards for Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art, Scottish Asian Arts, IB Tauris Religious Studies project and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
She has worked at the University of Glasgow since 1996, and in 1998 founded the Centre for the Study of Islam. In 2006, she was appointed Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding, and served as a Senate Assessor on the University Court.
In 2011 Siddiqui became the first person to hold a chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh's School of Divinity.[10] She was subsequently appointed Dean International for the Middle East.[10] In 2016, she delivered the Gifford LecturesonStruggle, Suffering and Hope: Explorations in Islamic and Christian Traditions at the University of Aberdeen.[11]
Her areas of specialisation are classical Islamic law, law and gender, early Islamic thought, and contemporary legal and ethical issues in Islam. Professor Siddiqui is the author of 'How to Read the Qur'an' (Granta), a four-volume edited collection 'Islam' (Sage) and 'The Good Muslim' (CUP). She is currently working on two further monographs with Yale University Press and IB Tauris. She has published articles and chapters on classical Islamic Law and also writes and speaks frequently on Christian-Muslim issues.[12]
Siddiqui is patron of The Feast,[13] a pioneering youthwork charity which works for community cohesion between Christian and Muslim young people.[14]
