Yusuf al-Qaradawi — A Revolutionary Scholar Who Always Fought Tyranny

The prominent religious scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi left the world at the age of 96, on a journey he spent between the fields of science, Islamic advocacy, and ijtihad to become the "scholar of his time" in the sciences of Islam and the "preacher of moderation" as many Islamists call him.

His distinguishness emerged early, and his great influence was manifested in his scientific and institutional projects that left a clear imprint in contemporary life and made him a name referred to as a significant scholar in the Islamic world.

Qaradawi's death came to close the curtain on an important chapter in the history of the Arab region, as he had great jurisprudential imprints in Islamic jurisprudence, and ironically, he is the most vulnerable to attack by many Arab regimes and some liberal and leftist forces, as well as some Salafi forces at the same time.

 

Early Prominence

Yusuf al-Qaradawi was born on September 9, 1926, in the village of Safat Turab in northern Egypt.

He completed the memorization of the Holy Qur'an and mastered its recitation at the age of ten and enrolled in the institutes of al-Azhar al-Sharif, where he completed his primary and secondary education and was ranked second in the secondary school certificate in the Kingdom of Egypt at the time, despite the conditions of his detention.

Al-Qaradawi joined the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion at al-Azhar University, from where he obtained the "High License" in 1953, which was his first ranking, then he obtained the "Scholarly License" with the teaching license from the Faculty of Arabic Language in 1954 and was also ranked first.

In 1960 he obtained the postgraduate preparatory study equivalent to the master's degree in the Division of Qur'anic and Sunnah Sciences from the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion, and in 1973 he received his doctorate with distinction with first-class honors from the same college with research on zakat and its impact on solving social problems.

He worked for a period of time preaching and teaching in mosques, then became the supervisor of the Institute of Imams of the Ministry of Endowments in Egypt, and was later transferred to the General Directorate of Islamic Culture at al-Azhar al-Sharif to supervise its publications.

 

Scientific Activity

In 1961, al-Qaradawi was delegated to Qatar as Dean of its Secondary Religious Institute, and in 1973 he headed the Department of Islamic Studies at the faculties of education for boys and girls at Qatar University.

In 1977, he founded and was dean of the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies at Qatar University and remained its dean until the end of the academic year 1989/1990.

He went from Qatar to Algeria in the academic year 1990/1991 to chair the scientific councils of its university and higher Islamic institutes and then returned to his work in Qatar as Director of the Research Center for Sunnah and Prophet's Biography.

Al-Qaradawi has been a regular guest on one of the most important religious programs, Sharia and Life, on Qatar's Al Jazeera for many years.

He also served as president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars after its founding in 2004 and was succeeded by Moroccan Ahmed Raissouni in 2018.

Al-Qaradawi has more than 170 books and letters and many fatwas and has recorded many episodes of religious programs, including documentaries and live programs.

 

Revolutionary Scholar

Since his early life, Qaradawi has been a "people's Sheikh," meaning that he stood beside people's issues and did not close himself up in the Islamic books and organizations.

One of his most significant positions was supporting the Arab Spring, where he described the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria as a "divine gift to change the course of their peoples" and strongly condemned the rulers' stance in confronting peaceful revolutionaries with bullets and killings.

After Mubarak's toppling, In February 2011, he returned to Egypt's imamate and Azhar after 31 years of banning, delivering a Friday preaching in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, days after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak's regime, making him the first Sheikh to preach the Friday preaching in Tahrir square after the victory of the people.

After that, the Sheikh of al-Azhar appointed him as a member of al-Azhar's Supreme Committee (which was renamed the Council of Senior Scholars), but in December 2013, it was announced that the committee had accepted the resignation of the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, from its membership, amid abstention from the vote on the resolution by current al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.

In January 2012, the Qaradawi Center for Islamic Moderation and Renewal, part of the College of Islamic Studies at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, announced the launch of the Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi International Award for Islamic Studies, which has two branches: an award for senior scholars and another for young scholars.

In July 2013, al-Qaradawi issued a statement refusing Sisi's coup d’état against the democratically elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and called for respecting the electoral poll and preserving the will of the people.

In response, the Egyptian regime withdrew the Egyptian nationality from him and accused him of "treason."

On May 16, 2015, a court ruling was issued to refer the papers of Sheikh al-Qaradawi, and about a hundred others, including the late President Mohamed Morsi, to the Grand Mufti of Egypt, in what is known as the case of "escaping from Wadi el-Natrun prison" during the revolution of January 25, 2011, a decision that the Sheikh described as pointless and unworthy of follow-up.

In 2016, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi visited Saudi Arabia, where he was received warmly by King Salman Abdulaziz.

 

Significant Harm

Since his early life, Sheikh Qaradawi always had been subjected to many harms, persecution, and arrests several times.

He suffered from prisons and their torments since 1949 during the reign of the monarchy (King Farouk), and then was forced into prison again in 1954 and 1963 under Nasser's regime, and the last was solitary confinement, and the total days of his imprisonment were about three years.

But his struggle was not for Egypt only. In the early 2000s, Qaradawi supported the Palestinian resistance against the occupation forces in Palestine.

Moreover, in May 2013, al-Qaradawi visited Gaza, his first visit to the Strip since the Israeli Occupation began its blockade more than six years ago and the third in his lifetime.

His support for Palestinian resistance movements also brought him the indignation of the West, although his jurisprudential moderation served as a major barrier to the spread of extremism in Europe, and European Muslims used his fatwas to facilitate their dealings in the West, especially when he chaired the European Council for Fatwa.

In 2008, the British authorities refused to grant Yusuf al-Qaradawi a visa to enter their territory because of his fatwa endorsing martyrdom resistance inside Israeli-occupied Palestine and refused Qaradawi to enter Britain because of his justification for those operations.

On March 26, 2012, French President Sarkozy announced that Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi had been barred from entering his country, commenting that he was unwelcome in France during his speech about radical Islamists.

In November 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain announced in a joint statement a third new list of terrorism that included two entities and 11 people, foremost among them the International Union of Muslim Scholars and the person of Qaradawi, who is included with other people affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

But Qaradawi's enemies were not limited to the regimes. On the other hand, many conservative and even moderate Islamists could not afford the amount of renewal that Qaradawi's jurisprudence carried on matters they considered to be fundamentals of religion, even though he provided strong evidence of his jurisprudential views.

Some Islamist movements could not tolerate or listen to his sometimes frank and harsh advice, such as his request to the Brotherhood not to present a candidate in Egypt's 2012 presidential elections.

And although Qaradawi was an advocate of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites, his attack on the Assad regime's grievances and Iran's support for it brought him criticism from circles affiliated with Tehran and Damascus, a price for his support for the will of the people.