YUSUF AL QARADAWI
Yusuf Mustafa al-Qaradawi was born 9 September 1926 in Sift Turab, a small village on the Nile Delta
whose only remarkable feature is that it is the resting place of one of sahaba named Abdullah bn AlHarith.
Al-Qaradawi’s father died when he was only two, and he was brought up by his mother in the household
of his uncle Ahmad, a poor tenant farmer who considered him a son.
Upon completing primary school, Yusuf yearned to continue his education at al-Azhar’s secondary
school. But with fear of no guarantee of gainful employment after study, his uncle tried to convince him
to learn a trade or open a shop. It was the intervention of a shaykh from a neighboring village that
persuaded Ahmad to “leave the future in the hands of Him who controls it” and allow his nephew to
follow the path he had chosen.
He moved to Tanta to study at the town’s Azhari secondary school. He was often at the top of the class,
which brought him small monetary awards to supplement his income. While in Tanta, he had the
opportunity to listen to Hasan al-Banna, founder and first leader of the Muslim Brothers, and became
one of his followers.
At 14, al-Qaradawi already officiated as imam at his village’s mosque on occasions such as Ramadan.
When he was only 20, he started giving lessons in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) in his village.
Al-Qaradawi loves Hasan al-Banna whom he described as both an inspiring leader and as an astute
observer.
He was in prison when he learnt of al-Banna’s murder by the security services on February 12, 1949. At
this point, he reflects:
While the Egyptian nation was overwhelmed with grief, people in the West--especially in Europe and the
United States--celebrated what they deemed a happy occasion…. They knew more than anybody the
worth of the man and his preaching and the enormity of the danger he represented for them
Al-Qaradawi’s autobiography shows the ambition that took him out of his small village and catapulted
him to international stardom.
When he was at the Azhari secondary school in Tanta, one of the teachers asked the students what they
wanted to be when they grew up, and Yusuf blurted out: “shaykh of al-Azhar.” The teacher, who had
made fun of the modest aspirations of the other students, declared with all seriousness: “Do not rule
that out, children. Many a big hope has realized, and many a remote dream has come true.
Following Jamal Abd Naseer popularity with his Arab Nationalism Movement, Qaradawi published in
1971 a book -the inevitability of the Islamic solution to propose a third way between capitalism and
socialism.