Yusuf Al Qaradawi

Scholar with a streetwise touch. Dr. al-Qaradawi is a prominent scholar who has devoted his life to the cause of Islam. He is an international figure whose religious pronouncements address the dilemmas confronting Muslims in the modern world. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi's contribution to the field of Islamic scholarship are noteworthy - authored numerous books, some of which have been translated into Turkish, Persian, Urdu and Indonesian. His book, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam has, since its first publication in 1960, enjoyed a huge readership. It clarifies the lawful (halal) and why it is lawful, and the prohibited (haram) and why it is prohibited, referring to the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Dr al-Qaradawi rose to international prominence in the late 1990s with the rise of pan-Arab television stations. On his weekly TV show on al-Jazeera, called Islamic Law and Life, he gives his interpretations of Islam on a wide range of subjects and that has made him a household name. Dr al-Qaradawi who has been based in the Gulf state of Qatar since 1961, after leaving Egypt, has repeatedly endorsed the cause of women's political rights, spoken out in condemnation of al-Qaida's indiscriminate massacre and has argued that suicide bombers are a legitimate method of attack for Palestinians. In his new book, The Jurisprudence of Jihad, Dr Al-Qaradawi restates his belief in the right of Muslims to resist 'aggression', and 'foreign occupation'. Repeating his call for a 'middle path', away from either defeatism or destructive zeal, he suggests that the best arena for today's jihad may be the 'realm of ideas, media and communication.' Sheikh al-Qaradawi's faith and political roots lie in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in 1928 to combat the secular influences of western civilisation and replace them with Islamic laws and values. Yusuf al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt and he was educated at al-Azhar University in Cairo. He is also a poet who is well known for his distinctive style.

Compiler: M. Nauman Khan