Dr Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, commonly called Dr Bilal Philips, arrived in the Gambia on 11 October 2022 on an educational visit.

Dr Bilal is a Jamaican Canadian Islamic scholar who converted to Islam in 1972. He completed a BA from the Islamic University of Medina, MA from King Saud University, Riyadh, and a PhD in Islamic Theology from the University of Wales, UK (1994). He spent several years teaching Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Doha, Chennai, and the American University in Dubai. He has written, translated, and commented on over 50 published books and presented Islamic programmes on several radio and television channels. But perhaps his greatest achievement, and the one for which he was listed in "The 500 Most Influential Muslims", is his historic founding of the Islamic Online University (now International Open University).

He is the Founder and Chancellor of the International Open University, a university in more than 200 countries with more than 400,000 students. The IOU is accredited in The Gambia and offers courses that provide knowledge from an Islamic perspective.

He will be in The Gambia for a couple of days and will make many appearances, giving lectures and meeting senior officials.