Yasir Qadhi

Yasir Qadhi
Personal
Born	(1975-01-30)January 30, 1975 Houston,Texas
Religion	Islam
Denomination	Sunni
Jurisprudence	Hanbali
Creed	Athari
Movement	Neo-traditionalismorWasatism
Education	Yale University(MA,MPhil,PhD) Islamic University of Madinah(BA,MA) University of Houston(BS)
YouTube information
Channel	Yasir Qadhi
Years active	May 23, 2012–present
Genre	Islamic
Subscribers	616 thousand
Total views	99.0 million
Associated acts	Epic Masjid Memphis Islamic Center
Creator Awards 100,000 subscribers

Yasir Qadhi(formerly known by hiskunyaAbu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi) (born January 30, 1975) is aPakistani AmericanMuslimscholarand theologian.He is dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and resident scholar of theEast Plano Islamic CenterinPlano, Texas.He was formerly the dean ofAlMaghrib Instituteand taught in the religious studies department atRhodes College.He currently serves as chairman of theFiqh Council of North America.

Born inTexastoPakistani Muhajirparents, Qadhi studied chemical engineering at theUniversity of Houston,before studyingHadithandIslamic theologyat theIslamic University of Madinahin Saudi Arabia.He earned his PhD fromYale Universitywhere his dissertation focused on the writings ofIbn Taymiyyah.Qadhi has written books and lectured widely on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues, and is considered one of the most influential Muslim scholars in the United States.He has also consistently been listed in the annual listicleThe 500 Most Influential Muslims.

Early years

Qadhi was born inHouston,TexastoPakistaniMuhajirparents.His father, a doctor by profession, founded the first mosque in the area, while his mother is a microbiologist, both fromKarachiin Pakistan and whose ancestral homeland isUttar Pradeshin India.When he was five, the family moved toJeddah,Saudi Arabia,where he attended local schools. By 15 he hadmemorized the Qur'anand graduated from high school two years early as class valedictorian.He returned to the United States, where he earned aB.Scin Chemical Engineering at theUniversity of Houston.

Professional career

After a short stint working in engineering atDow Chemical,in 1996 Qadhi enrolled at theIslamic University of MedinahinMedina,Saudi Arabia. There, he earned a bachelor's degree in Arabic from the university's College of Hadith and Islamic Sciences and a master's degree in Islamic Theology from its College ofDawah.Qadhi returned to the United States after working and studying for nine years in Saudi Arabia.He completed adoctorateintheologyatYale UniversityinNew Haven, Connecticut.

Qadhi taught in the Religious Studies Department ofRhodes College,inMemphis,Tennessee. He previously was the Dean of Academic Affairs and an instructor for theAlMaghrib Institute,a seminar-based Islamic education institution founded in 2001. The instructors travel to teach Islamic studies in English. He moved to the Dallas metropolitan area in early 2019, becoming the resident scholar of theEast Plano Islamic Center.He is the Dean of Academic Affairs at The Islamic Seminary of America.

Qadhi was a guest on an episode of Harvard professorHenry Louis Gates's television genealogy seriesFinding Your Rootson PBS.

Views

Jihad

Qadhi has presented papers onjihadmovements. In 2006, at a conference atHarvard Law School,Qadhi presented a 15-minute analysis of the theological underpinnings of an early militant movement in modern Saudi Arabia headed byJuhayman al-Otaibi.The movement had gained international attention when it held theGrand MosqueofMeccahostage in 1979.

In September 2009, he presented a paper at an international conference at theUniversity of Edinburghon understandingjihadin the modern world. He said the specific legal ruling (fatwa) of the 13–14th century theologianIbn Taymiyyaon theMongol Empirehas been wrongfully used in the 20th and 21st centuries by bothjihadistand pacifist groups to justify their positions.The paper has been critiqued by someSalaficommentators, who say that they in fact did not revise the definition ofJihad.

Qadhi was previously affiliated withSalafism,but has since left it.He now identifies himself as aWasatistand has been described as such.

Sufism and veneration of the saints

Qadhi believes that the practice of some Sufi Muslims visiting the graves of Sufi saints and calling upon Muhammad and calling upon them for help or guidance is notshirk(polytheism) but said it isharam,sinful, an evil innovation, and called it a stepping stone and gateway to shirk but not shirk in and of itself.Qadhi has also stated that these Muslims should still be regarded as Muslims, though misguided.He believes that questioning whether veneration of Sufi saints at gravesites can be called shirk is highly problematic because that would mean accusing many Muslim scholars who hold affirmative views towards it of committing shirk and being out of the fold of Islam.He has said it is not shirk in and of itself unless they believe they are calling out to a god, intend to worship or believe in the saints to have independent powers in and of themselves.He has also stated that Sufi Muslims that participate in the practice do not believe in the saints to be gods and don't intend it to be worship when calling upon them, nor do they believe that the saints are giving assistance to them completely independently from God.

Views on social issues

Yasir Qadhi has criticized progressive Muslims who interpret Islamic law as supporting homosexual relations, saying these teachings contain "very little Islam".

In regards to religious liberties, Qadhi believes that Islamic teachings don't support or require that Muslim business owners discriminate or refuse service to LGBTQ individuals. Nonetheless, Qadhi expresses concern that Islamic institutions may face issues if they speak in a vulgar manner and employ or fire employees that don't conform to conservative beliefs regarding sexual behaviors.

Death threat by Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria

In the April 2016 issue ofDabiq Magazine,theIslamic State of Iraq and the Levantdeclared Qadhi, along withHamza Yusuf,Bilal Philips,Suhaib Webband numerous other WesternIslamic speakers,asmurtads,that is, apostates or blasphemers.He was threatened with death for his denouncing of ISIS.

Controversies

Some of his statements have been controversial, including comments in a speech in 2001 questioning Hitler's motives in the Holocaust. He later stated that he regretted those comments and visited the Auschwitz concentration camp with a delegation of Muslim leaders.

In January 2010, the BritishThe Daily Telegraphreported that in 2001 Qadhi had described theHolocaustas a hoax and false propaganda, and had said that "Hitlernever intended to mass-destroy the Jews. "The following yearThe New York Timesreported he said that most Islamic studies professors in the United States are Jews who "want to destroy us."

Qadhi denied stating that the Holocaust was a hoax or that it was false propaganda, but in 2008 admitted that he had briefly held mistaken beliefs about the Holocaust, and had said "that Hitler never actually intended to massacre the Jews, he actually wanted to expel them to neighboring lands." Qadhi said that his views were wrong and said "I admit it was an error".Qadhi added that he firmly believes "that the Holocaust was one of the worst crimes against humanity that the 20th century has witnessed" and that "the systematic dehumanization of the Jews in the public eye of the Germans was a necessary precursor" for that tragedy.More generally, he said that he "fell down a slippery slope", expressing anger at actions of the Israeli government in the form of anti-Semitic remarks he later recognized as wrong.

In July 2010, Qadhi was selected to participate in an official delegation of eight U.S. imams and Jewish religious leaders to visit the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau. The imams subsequently released a joint statement condemning anti-Semitism and labeling Holocaust denial as against the ethics of Islam.

The Timesnewspaper reported thatBritish Charity Commissionregulators contacted three Islamic charities about Qadhi's 2015 tour, where he allegedly made controversial comments and told students that "killing homosexuals and stoning adulterers was part of their religion." He also clarified to them that these punishments were only applicable in an Islamic society and were not to be applied in the West.

On June 8, 2020, Qadhi was interviewed by Muslim apologist Mohammed Hijab, where he was asked about the "perfect preservation of the Qur'an," a popular Islamic apologetical argument, in light of differentQira'atandAhruf.During the interview, Qadhi said, "The standard narrative has holes in it. That's what I'm gonna say. The standard narrative does not answer some very pressing questions."His comments became fodder for Christian polemicists, becoming anInternet meme,and prompted negative reactions from Muslimscholarsandproselytizers,leading Qadhi to private the video on hisYouTubechannel, though his comments are not atypical of the views of critical scholarship of the Qur'an.In an April 2024 interview,Harvard UniversityIslamic studiesPhD candidate Javad T. Hashmi joked that he considered naming his lecture on the preservation of the Qur'an, as part of a course taught alongside New Testament scholarBart D. Ehrman,"Holes in the Narrative," as a reference to Qadhi's controversial comments.

Works

Books authored or co-authored

Title	Description
Riyaa: Hidden Shirk	Dar-al-Fatah, 1996
An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qura̓an	Al-Hidaayah Pub., 1999,ISBN1-898649-32-4
An Explanation of the Four Principles of Shirk	Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb, Al-Hidaayah, 2000,ISBN1-898649-52-9
Du'a: The Weapon of the Believer	Al Hidaayah Publishing & Distribution, 2001,ISBN1-898649-51-0
15 Ways to Increase Your Earnings from the Quran and Sunnah	Al Hidaayah Publishing & Distribution, 2002,ISBN1-898649-56-1
An explanation of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's Kashf al-Shubuhat	A critical analysis of shirk,with Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb, Al-Hidaayah, 2003,ISBN1-898649-62-6
Maqalat al-Jahm b. Safwan wa-atharuha fıl-firaq al-Islamiyya	The Doctrines of Jahm b. Safwan and Its Effects on Islamic Sects, 2 vols. Riyad: Adwa al-salaf, 2005.
Like a Garment: Intimacy in Islam	Independently published (March 4, 2019),ISBN978-1798705247
Seerah of Prophet Muhammad (SAW)	Independently published (May 7, 2019), (length: 776 pages)ISBN978-1099278389
Lessons from Surah al-Kahf (Pearls from the Qur'an)	Kube Publishing Ltd. (March 10, 2020),ISBN978-1847741318
Lessons from Surah Yusuf (Pearls from the Qur'an)	Kube Publishing Ltd. (November 3, 2020),ISBN978-1847741370
Reflections: Personal Insights From Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi	Al-Buruj Press (February 17, 2021),ISBN978-9672420651
The Miracle of the Qur'an	Tertib Publishing (March 1, 2021)
The Power of Repentance	Tertib Publishing (March 9, 2021)
The Parables of the Qur'an	Kube Publishing Ltd. (March 12, 2022),ISBN978-1847741790
The Sīrah of the Prophet: A Contemporary and Original Analysis	Kube Publishing Ltd. (June 15, 2023),ISBN978-0860378785

Research papers

• Reconciling Reason and Revelation in the Writings of Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328): An Analytical Study of Ibn Taymiyyah’s Dar' at-ta’aarod,PhD Dissertation, 2013,Yale University.
• "The Unleashed Thunderbolts' Of Ibn Qayyim Al-Ǧawziyyah: An Introductory Essay",Oriente Modernovol. 90, no. 1, 2010, pp. 135–149.
• "A Christian Islamist?",Political Theology,vol. 14, issue 6, 2013, pp. 803–812.
• "Salafı-Ash'arı Polemics of the 3rd & 4th Islamic Centuries,"The Muslim World,2016.

Translations

• Sunan Abu Dawud - first 2 volumes

See also

• AlMaghrib Institute
• Wasatism
• Salafism
• Islam in the United States
• Islam in Dallas
• Omar Suleiman
• Ibn Taymiyya