Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a revered Muslim religious figure, passes away.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a revered Muslim religious figure, passes away. One of the most well-known religious figures in the Sunni Muslim world, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has passed away.
Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian living in Qatar, was the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide. Age-wise, he was 96.
Al-Qaradawi, who formerly frequently appeared on Al Jazeera Arabic to talk about religious issues, hosted a popular TV program called “Shariah and Life,” where he took calls from Muslims all over the world, gave theological rulings, and gave advice on everything from important matters of international politics to ordinary aspects of daily life.
Al-Qaradawi harshly criticized the 2013 coup that deposed Egypt’s first president to be chosen democratically, Mohamed Morsi.
Prior to being elected president, Morsi was a Muslim Brotherhood member and received their support.
Al-hostility Qaradawi’s to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi prevented him from going back to Egypt after Morsi was deposed.
Prior to the 2011 uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, the religious leader had previously lived in exile from Egypt.
In the Muslim world as a whole, mourning for him was expressed on social media in response to his passing.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which had branches all throughout the Middle East and was formed in Egypt, contributed significantly to the 2011 uprisings that shook the region and sparked widespread protests in a number of nations.
In Egypt, Al-Qaradawi had been convicted and given a death sentence while he was away.
Qaradawi wrote “more than 120 books and more than 50-60 additional publications that spoke to a significant portion of the global Muslim community,” according to Jamal El Shayyal of Al Jazeera.
He was “perhaps the most internationally minded Muslim thinker that Islam had in modern times — possibly the single most impactful in that he didn’t limit his teachings to a narrow section of Islam,” he claimed.
Al-Qaradawi, who was born in 1926 while Egypt was still a British colony, blended his religious education with anti-colonial action in his adolescence. He was arrested multiple times during the 1950s as a result of his activities against the British occupation and his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
When he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Shariah at Qatar University in the early 1960s, he relocated to Qatar. He eventually received Qatari citizenship.
A “moderate, brilliant scholar,” according to Ibrahim Salah Al-Nuaimi, head of the Doha International Centre for Interreligious Dialogue.
Al-Nuaimi told Al Jazeera that “he worked closely with many representatives of different faiths to bring about harmony and to actually put down the hate speeches” that would occasionally develop between different faiths.
The 1973 publication Fiqh al-Zakat was one of his earliest notable publications (The Jurisprudence of Zakat). Al-Qaradawi also aimed to better integrate Muslims into non-Muslim societies by reinterpreting traditional Islamic law.
He advocated for suicide bombings against Israel during the Second Intifada and spoke out in favor of the Iraqi uprising that broke out after Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2003. His stance on these subjects has earned him enduring notoriety in the West.
Al-Qaradawi was charged in 2009 by Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency with transferring $21 million to a Hamas-funded organization to establish militant infrastructure in Jerusalem. The charges were refuted by Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
