Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

Photo from Wikimedia Commons / Author of Photo: Ebong abd

Overview

* Qatar-based Muslim scholar who supports Palestinian suicide bombings
* Prolific author
* Has issued numerous fatwas supporting Islamic extremism and denouncing Israel and the U.S.


Yusuf Al-Qaradawi was born to impoverished Muslim parents in Egypt on September 9, 1926. Orphaned at the age of two, he was thereafter raised by an uncle. Qaradawi memorized the Koran in its entirety by age ten, and was particularly drawn to the brand of extremist, anti-Western Islam advanced by Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Based in Qatar since the 1970s, Qaradawi was a longtime spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam. Twice (in 1976 and 2004) he turned down opportunities to serve as the Brotherhood’s highest-ranking leader. His preference, he explained in 2004, was to avoid tying himself to “any movement which might constrain my actions, even if this is the Muslim Brotherhood under whose umbrella I grew and which I so defended.”

In addition to his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, Qaradawi also served as: (a) founder and president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, which has issued a number of anti-Zionist fatwas (religious edicts); (b) founder and chairman of the IslamOnline website, which has published numerous articles and religious rulings that were anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and supportive of violence against non-Muslims; (c) chairman (in absentia) of the Board of Trustees at the Michigan-based Islamic American University (IAU), a subsidiary of the Muslim American Society; (d) president of the Union of Good, a Saudi-based umbrella organization which represents Islamic fundraising groups worldwide, and which has transferred tens of millions of dollars directly to Hamas over the years; (e) chairman and president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research; (f) a Board of Directors member of the Islamic Society of Boston (whose founder and first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi — an avid supporter of both Hamas and Hezbollah); (g) a Board of Religious Affairs member of the Egyptian government’s Ministry of Awqaf; (h) chairman of the Islamic Scientific Council of the Algerian Universities (1990-91); (i) a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation‘s Fiqh Academy; (j) a member of the Jordan-based Royal Academy for Islamic Culture and Research; (k) dean of the Faculty of Shariah & Islamic Studies at the University of Qatar; (l) director of the Center for Sunnah and Sirah Studies at the University of Qatar (starting in 1991); and (m) a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Islamic University in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Qaradawi authored more than 100 books on Islam, and he once hosted a popular weekly television program called Shariah and Life on the Arabic television station and satellite network Al Jazeera.

As of 1999, Qaradawi was one of the largest shareholders in Al Taqwa Bank, a Bahamas-based financial institution which the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terrorist financier (with ties to al Qaeda) in 2001. He also served on the bank’s Sharia Board, which oversaw the institution’s adherence to Islamic law.

During the 2007 Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) trial — which examined evidence of HLF’s fundraising on behalf of Hamas — Qaradawi’s name appeared on a U.S. government list of approximately 300 of HLF’s “unindicted co-conspirators” and “joint venturers.”

Due to his support for Palestinian terrorism, Qaradawi was barred from entering the United States from 1999 onward. Notwithstanding the ban on his physical entry into the U.S, Qaradawi’s Islamonline.net website announced on December 27, 2008, that it had opened an office in Washington, D.C.

In February 2008, the United Kingdom denied Qaradawi’s attempt to enter that country with his visa — just as the United States had done nine years earlier — on grounds that “[t]he UK will not tolerate the presence of those who seek to justify any act of terrorist violence…”

Qaradawi’s Views on Women

In his 1984 book, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, Qaradawi asserted that women should be unquestioningly obedient to their husbands: “Because of his natural ability and his responsibility for providing for his family, the man is the head of the house and of the family. He is entitled to the obedience and cooperation of his wife, and accordingly it is not permissible for her to rebel against his authority, causing disruption. Without a captain the ship of the household will flounder and sink.”

Qaradawi endorsed domestic violence against women. In one discussion (on his Al Jazeera program) regarding spousal abuse, he said that hitting one’s wife ought to be an alternative of last resort, but added: “There is a woman who cannot agree to being beaten, and sees this as humiliation, while some women enjoy the beating and for them, only beating to cause them sorrow is suitable…”

Qaradawi wrote approvingly of the Qur’an’s mandate for wife-beating (4:34), explaining that “blows are not effective with every woman, but they are helpful with some.”

An advocate of female genital mutilation (a.k.a. female circumcision), Qaradawi said that while Islam does not necessarily mandate the practice, “whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world.”

Regarding the question of whether women should be permitted to engage in suicide bombings, Qaradawi in 2004 affirmed that females could indeed fulfill their religious duties in that manner, just like men: “When Jihad becomes an Individual Duty, as when the enemy seizes the Muslim territory, a woman becomes entitled to take part in it alongside men. Jurists maintained that: When the enemy assaults a given Muslim territory, it becomes incumbent upon all its residents to fight against them to the extent that a woman should go out even without the consent of her husband, a son can go too without the permission of his parent, a slave without the approval of his master, and the employee without the leave of his employer.”

In a 2004 fatwa, Qaradawi said: “The committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.”

When asked if female rape victims should be punished under Islam, Qaradawi replied: “To be absolved from guilt, the raped woman must have shown some sort of good conduct…. Since Islam addresses women to maintain their modesty, as not to open the door for evil…. [F]or a rape victim to be absolved from guilt, she must not be the one that opens … her dignity for deflowering.”

Qaradawi’s Views on Islamic Jihad, Worldwide Conquest, & the Establishment of a Caliphate

At a 1995 conference held by the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) in Toledo, Ohio, Qaradawi said, “Our brothers in Hamas, in Palestine, the Islamic resistance, the Islamic Jihad, after all the rest have given up and despaired, the movement of the Jihad brings us back to our faith.” At that same conference, he articulated the foremost objectives of his faith:

“What remains, then, is to conquer Rome. The second part of the omen. ‘The city of Hiraq [once emperor of Constantinople] will be conquered first, so what remains is to conquer Rome.’  This means that Islam will come back to Europe for the third time, after it was expelled from it twice…. Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing], that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa. […] But the balance of power will change, and this is what is told in the Hadith of Ibn-Omar and the Hadith of Abu-Hurairah: ‘You shall continue to fight the Jews and they will fight you, until the Muslims will kill them. And the Jew will hide behind the stone and the tree, and the stone and the tree will say: Oh servant of Allah, Oh Muslim, this is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him! The resurrection will not come before this happens.‘ This is a text from the good omens in which we believe.”

Qaradawi was an advocate of the global caliphate, calling for the establishment of what he called a “United Muslim Nations” as a counterweight to Western political power worldwide. In an IslamOnline posting from April 1, 2002, he outlined his vision of a world united under the rule of Islam: “[T]he patch of the Muslim state will expand to cover the whole earth and that the strength of this state will grow and become obvious to all. This also denotes good news for the long-cherished hope of revival of Muslims unity and rebirth of Islamic Caliphate.”

In an interview that appeared in the Fatwa section of the June 2002 edition of the Muslim American Society publication The American Muslim, Qaradawi was asked the following question: “Prophet Muhammed said that nations will haunt against us. Can we say that this is happening right now?” He replied, “The emergence of the Islamic awakening has breathed in the Muslim nation a sense of confidence and hope in the future. Such movement is worthy of leading the Muslim nation to utter victory once there are leaders who are rightly guided by Almighty Allah and filled with wisdom.”

In 2003, Qaradawi issued a fatwa stating that Muslims who were killed while fighting American forces in Iraq were holy martyrs: “Those killed fighting the American forces are martyrs given their good intentions since they consider these invading troops an enemy within their territories but without their will. Although they are seen by some as being wrong, those defending against attempts to control Islamic countries have the intention of Jihad and bear a spirit of the defense of their homeland.”

In a July 2007 speech that aired on Al-Jazeera TV on July 16, 2007, Qaradawi said: “I support the Palestinian cause. I support the resistance and the jihad. I support Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah. I oppose the peace that Israel and America wish to dictate. This peace is an illusion. I support martyrdom operations.”

In 2010, Qaradawi made it clear that every Muslim had a duty to obey the commandments of the Prophet Muhammad, regardless of how brutal or barbaric they might be: “If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must.”

In a September 2010 speech, Qaradawi defined jihad as an Islamic moral duty and said that Muslims were permitted to kill Israeli women because they served in the army of the Jewish state. The Prophet Mohammad’s prohibition against killing innocent people, he added, did not apply to Israel because it was a country guilty of aggression and oppression.

In a 2010 interview, Qaradawi described for the London-based publication Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the manner in which he hoped to die one day: “I am a soldier of God Almighty fighting with knowledge, work, and call for God. I wish to conclude my life by martyrdom for the sake of God. I wish that God concludes my life with martyrdom, and that my martyrdom be at the hand of a non-Muslim.”

Qaradawi’s Views Regarding Gradualism

In December 2011, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that Qaradawi had recently recommended that Muslims seek to implement Shari’ah Law in various societies in a gradual manner, rather than attempt to apply it swiftly and forcibly. “Gradualism is one of the laws of nature that Allah Almighty has created,” wrote Qaradawi, “It is also needed in applying the rulings of Shari’ah to make a change in people’s life. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stayed in Makkah for thirteen years struggling to shake the false beliefs the Makkan people had adopted. Then, for other ten years, Allah Almighty revealed to him (peace and blessings be upon him) the laws that the Muslim would live by. Gradualism played an effective role in that regard…. Gradualism in applying the Shari’ah is a wise requirement to follow.”

Qaradawi’s Views On Jews, & Israel

One of Qaradawi’s foremost passions was his deep and unwavering hatred for, and distrust of, the Jewish people. He unambiguously justified Palestinian suicide bombings as legitimate responses to alleged “Zionist” aggression and occupation.

In January 1998, The Associated Press quoted al-Qaradawi as having written: “There should be no dialogue with these people [Israelis] except with swords.”

In April 2002, Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring a Muslim boycott of American- and Israeli-made products. “To buy their goods is to support tyranny, oppression and aggression,” he wrote. “Buying goods from them will strengthen them; our duty is to make them as weak as we can.”

In July 2003, Qaradawi asserted that suicide bombings “are not in any way included in the framework of prohibited terrorism, even if the victims include some civilians.” This, he explained, was because Israel was “a society of invaders” whose “nature” was “colonialist, occupational, [and] racist.”

In May 2004, Qaradawi said, “There is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle.”

Sometime prior to 2005, Qaradawi issued a fatwa permitting Muslims to kill Jewish fetuses, on the logic that when Jews become adults they might join the Israeli military and commit atrocities against Muslims.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Qaradawi declared that Muslims were obliged to support the terrorist group Hezbollah in its combat operations against Israel.

During a 2007 event at the Brookings Institution, Qaradawi delivered a speech that excoriated the United States and Israel while defending Palestinian terrorists. “So what I want to say is that it is America who is antagonizing us,” he declared, “it took Islam as a surrogate enemy, and accuses Islam of being the source of violence and terrorism, while it forbids our occupied peoples from resisting the occupiers. It does not want the Iraqi people to resist the American occupation, nor does it want the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation. Whoever does this is accused of terrorism. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions are all accused of resisting the occupiers. Because I oppose the Palestinian occupation, I am categorized by our American brothers as a terrorist, as calling for terrorism. Does this make people love America? They are double standards.” Added Qaradawi: “America, which forbids the resistance from defending its country, does not say a single word condemning Israel’s daily acts of slaughter, torture, displacement, starvation, destruction, and siege. It does not say a single honorable word. On the contrary, Israel runs amok in the region with all this violence, supported by American money, American weapons, and the American veto. This is why people are against America…. My advice is that America should give up the idea of controlling the world by force.”

In a January 2009 speech that aired on Al Jazeera, Qaradawi said: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers.”

At a January 2009 “Gaza Victory Rally” in Qatar, Qaradawi declared: “The only thing that I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah.” …. [Allah] will not allow these people [Jews] to continue to spread corruption in the land. We wait for the revenge of Allah to descend upon them, and Allah willing, it will be by our own hands.”

In January 2009 as well, Qaradawi said: “[Allah] will not allow these people [Jews] to continue to spread corruption in the land. We wait for the revenge of Allah to descend upon them, and Allah willing, it will be by our own hands: ‘Fight them, Allah will torment them by your hands, and bring them to disgrace, and will assist you against them, and will heal the hearts of the believers, and you will still the anger of your hearts.’ This is my message to the treacherous Jews.” He then proceeded to beseech Allah not to “spare a single one of them.” “Oh Allah,” he said, “count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”

In a September 2010 speech, Qaradawi defined jihad as an Islamic moral duty and said that Muslims were permitted to kill Israeli women because they served in the army of the Jewish state. The Prophet Mohammad’s prohibition against killing innocent people, he added, did not apply to Israel because it was a country guilty of aggression and oppression.

In an October 2010 interview with OnIslam.net, Qaradawi blamed “the Zionist media machine” for public opposition to the location of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” that was being proposed for construction in New York City.

In a recorded address which he delivered to a Hamas-organized conference in Gaza in October 2010, Qaradawi instructed Palestinians to continue violence against Israel: “Arms must not be laid down; he who wants freedom must pay the price. Independence is not given as alms.” According to the Arabic-language newspaper al-Watan, Qaradawi also stated: “We must irrigate [the] tree of freedom with our blood. We must not leave the Palestinians alone.” Every Muslim “must play his part to help our brothers in Palestine until they obtain their rights,” he added. “Not one inch of the Land of Islam must remain in the grasp of infidels and occupiers.”

In October 2010, Qaradawi boycotted the 8th Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue conference in Qatar, explaining that he opposed, as a matter of principle, any discourse with Jews. “How can we conduct a dialogue in a time when they seize lands, shed blood, burn farms, and demolish houses? Palestine’s conundrum has to be resolved first before we sit together at the same table,” he said.

One Jewish group that Qaradawi is pleased to speak with is the anti-Zionist organization Neturei Karta. Qaradawi and members of Neturei Karta once attended a Holocaust-denial conference staged by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had repeatedly articulated his desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

Qaradawi’s Views on America

In April 2002, Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring a Muslim boycott of American- and Israeli-made products. “To buy their goods is to support tyranny, oppression and aggression,” he wrote. “Buying goods from them will strengthen them; our duty is to make them as weak as we can.”

In 2004, Qaradawi expressed support for the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq, endorsing the kidnapping and murder of American civilians there. Announcing a fatwa at the Egyptian Journalists’ Union convention in Cairo, he stated: “All of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately.”

In September 2004, Qaradawi — in a  communiqué that he signed along with 93 other clerics — affirmed that Muslims had a religious obligation to fight U.S. and British troops in Iraq. Said the document: “[T]he Jihad – waging Iraqi people’s resistance to the foreign occupation … is a Shari’a duty incumbent upon anyone belonging to the Muslim nation, within and outside Iraq, who is capable of carrying it out,” and that it was “forbidden for any Muslim to offer support to the occupiers.”

In a 2007 interview, Qaradawi said: “It is obligatory on all Muslims to resist any possible attack the U.S. might launch against Iran. The U.S. is an enemy of Islam that has already declared war on Islam under the disguise of war on terrorism and provides Israel with unlimited support.”

During a 2007 event at the Brookings Institution, Qaradawi delivered a speech that excoriated the United States and Israel while defending Palestinian terrorists. “So what I want to say is that it is America who is antagonizing us,” he declared, “it took Islam as a surrogate enemy, and accuses Islam of being the source of violence and terrorism, while it forbids our occupied peoples from resisting the occupiers. It does not want the Iraqi people to resist the American occupation, nor does it want the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation. Whoever does this is accused of terrorism. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions are all accused of resisting the occupiers. Because I oppose the Palestinian occupation, I am categorized by our American brothers as a terrorist, as calling for terrorism. Does this make people love America? They are double standards.” Added Qaradawi: “America, which forbids the resistance from defending its country, does not say a single word condemning Israel’s daily acts of slaughter, torture, displacement, starvation, destruction, and siege. It does not say a single honorable word. On the contrary, Israel runs amok in the region with all this violence, supported by American money, American weapons, and the American veto. This is why people are against America…. My advice is that America should give up the idea of controlling the world by force.”

Qaradawi’s Views on Suicide Bombings

In Qaradawi’s opinion, religious rulings that sspoke against suicide bombings were illegitimate rulings. “I am astonished that some sheikhs deliver fatwas that betray the mujahideen,” he once stated, “instead of supporting them and urging them to sacrifice and martyrdom.” Regarding one such fatwa that had been issued by the imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Qaradawi said: “It is unfortunate to hear that the grand imam has said it was not permissible to kill civilians in any country or state, even in Israel.”

In April 2001, Qaradawi said of suicide bombings: “They are not suicide operations…. These are heroic martyrdom operations.”

In an April 2002 sermon, Qaradawi said: “The Israelis might have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb and these human bombs must continue until liberation…. Calling for peace at this time is treason.”

During the Brookings Institution‘s 2002 “Doha Conference on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World,” Qaradawi participated in a panel titled “Martyrs of Murderers? Terrorism and Suicide Bombings.” There, he defended the practice of suicide bombings by jihadist groups: “If we are talking about people who are our brothers and our sons in Palestine who are defending their country, people like Hamas and Jihad and al-Aqsa [Martyrs’] Brigades, they are not murderers, they are not killers and it’s a transgression against them to call them so and label them so… They have every right to defend themselves and to stick their necks out for the sake of their freedom. People who call them suicides are committing a transgression against them. This is a wrongful description. They are not suicides. They are the furthest away from the concept of suicide. The psychology of a suicide is totally different. A suicide is someone who is desperate and gives up hope on life and God and does not believe in the mercy of God. They are totally against that. These are people who can never be called murderers.”

In July 2003, Qaradawi asserted that suicide bombings “are not in any way included in the framework of prohibited terrorism, even if the victims include some civilians.” This, he explained, was because Israel was “a society of invaders” whose “nature” was “colonialist, occupational, [and] racist.”

In 2004 Qaradawi told BBC television, “Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have, and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do.”

In 2004 as well, Qaradawi stated that suicide bombings are “weapons to which the weak resort in order to upset the balance because the powerful have all the weapons that the weak are denied.”

Regarding the question of whether women should be permitted to engage in suicide bombings, Qaradawi in 2004 affirmed that females could indeed fulfill their religious duties in that manner, just like men: “When Jihad becomes an Individual Duty, as when the enemy seizes the Muslim territory, a woman becomes entitled to take part in it alongside men. Jurists maintained that: When the enemy assaults a given Muslim territory, it becomes incumbent upon all its residents to fight against them to the extent that a woman should go out even without the consent of her husband, a son can go too without the permission of his parent, a slave without the approval of his master, and the employee without the leave of his employer.”

In a 2004 fatwa, Qaradawi said: “The committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.”

In February 2008, Qaradawi reiterated his endorsement of suicide bombings, saying: “I have [supported] this for more than 20 years.”

In a February 2010 interview with BBC Arabic, Qaradawi said: “I supported martyrdom operations. This is a necessary thing, as I told them in London. Give the Palestinians tanks, airplanes, and missiles, and they won’t carry out martyrdom operations. They are forced to turn themselves into human bombs, in order to defend their land, their honor, and their homeland.”

Qaradawi’s Views on Apostasy

Qaradawi favored the death penalty for people who willfully left the Islamic faith. The “apostate,” he said in a June 2002 fatwa, “is no more than a traitor to his religion and his people and thus deserves killing.”

Qaradawi asserted that Islam’s practice of executing apostates had served to ensure Islam’s survival since the 15th century: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist today.”

Qaradawi’s Views on Nuclear Weapons

In 2007 Qaradawi said that Iran should not be denied the right to develop nuclear technology for ostensibly peaceful purposes so long as the United States and Israel possessed nuclear weapons: “It is obligatory on all Muslims to resist any possible attack the U.S. might launch against Iran. The U.S. is an enemy of Islam that has already declared war on Islam under the disguise of war on terrorism and provides Israel with unlimited support.”

In 2009 Qaradawi said the following about Muslims seeking to acquire nuclear weapons: “The Qur’an referred to this, saying: ‘Prepare against them what force and steeds of war you can, to strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah and of your own enemies, and others besides them, whom you do not know, but Allah knows.’ ‘Prepare against them what force and steeds of war you can.’”

In an October 2010 interview with Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language service, Qaradawi was asked whether Muslims should try to acquire atomic weapons in order “to terrorize their enemies.” He replied that such an objective was permissible, in compliance with Qur’anic verses urging Muslims “to terrorize thereby the enemy of God and your enemy.”

Qaradawi’s Views on Homosexuality

In 2004 Qaradawi wrote a fatwa that presented burning or stoning as acceptable penalties for those who practice homosexuality, adding: “While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.”

Western Leftists Who Have Lauded Qaradawi As a “Moderate”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) embraced Qaradawi on many occasions, describing him as a “renowned Muslim scholar.”

In 2010, Hollywood producer Barrie Osborne — known for major films such as The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix, — hired Qaradawi as a consultant for a movie about the Prophet Mohammed.

Professor John Esposito, director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, described Qaradawi as part of “a cross section of Muslim thinkers, religious leaders and mainstream Islamic movements from Egypt to Indonesia, Europe to America.” In 2011, Esposito praised Qaradawi as a champion of a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.”

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has called it “shocking” that  “mainstream American media outlets painted Qaradawi with a ‘moderate’ brush.” Some examples from IPT:

  • “When Qaradawi referred to Shiite Muslims in September 2008 as ‘heretics’ seeking to infiltrate Sunni societies and inflaming sectarian tensions throughout the Middle East, the Associated Press chose to characterize the Sheikh as someone ‘widely respected throughout the Middle East … [who] has also participated in numerous Muslim and interfaith reconciliation dialogues.”
  • “The Los Angeles Times did the same, calling him a ‘prominent moderate cleric,’ despite his inflammatory remarks.”
  • “In the run up to the Iraq War in 2003, the Christian Science Monitor referred to Qaradawi as a ‘moderate Egyptian cleric,’ while the Washington Post described him as a ‘popular Islamic cleric who is often seen as a moderate voice in the Arab world,’ despite his pronouncements at the time calling those who died resisting the occupation in Iraq ‘martyrs.’”
  • “Perhaps the most egregious example is a February 2003 article in the Washington Post that refers to Qaradawi as a ‘maverick’ [who was] ‘seen as a voice of moderation.’ The article even goes so far as to call him a ‘reformer’ that was ‘seeking to create a new, moderate current in Muslim thinking.’”

Qaradawi’s Death

Qaradawi died on September 26, 2022, at the age of 96.

Additional Resources:


Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Theologian of Terror
By The Anti-Defamation League
2013

Yusuf al-Qaradawi
By The Investigative Project on Terrorism
July 9, 2008

“Moderate” Qaradawi Defends Hitler and Nuclear Terror
By Investigative Project on Terrorism
November 9, 2010

Qaradawi’s Extremism Laid Bare
By The Investigative Project on Terrorism
February 6, 2009

Unindicted Coconspirators
By Andrew McCarthy
October 27, 2010

In His Own Words:

Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi Eulogizes Saddam Hussein in Friday Sermon on Qatar TV
By MEMRI
January 17, 2007

We Are Fighting in the Name of Islam…This Jihad is an Individual Duty of the Entire Muslim Nation
By MEMRI
February 28, 2006

Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi on Hamas Jerusalem Day Online: ‘We are a Nation of Jihad and Martyrdom’
By MEMRI
December 18, 2005

“There is No Dialogue Between Us and the Jews Except by the Sword and the Rifle”
By MEMRI
July 27, 2004

Al-Qaradhawi Speaks in Favor of Suicide Operations at an Islamic Conference in Sweden
By MEMRI
July 24, 2003

Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi: “We Gave Up On Haifa and Jaffa; I Am Opposed to Attacks in Islamic Countries”
By MEMRI
June 27, 2003

Leading Sunni Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi and Other Sheikhs Herald the Coming Conquest of Rome
By MEMRI
December 6, 2002

 | 
© Copyright 2024, DiscoverTheNetworks.org