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Barry Rubin, who refers to Qaradawi as a living legend, has lots more about him.
Read the whole thing.
Here's an example of a Qaradawi sermon. Let's go to the videotape.
Who do you think will win an election in Egypt? Yusuf al-Qaradawi or Google executive Wael Ghonim?
Terrorist supporter Qaradawi to address Tahrir Square
From OnIslam (verified by Al Arabiya in Arabic):
As thousands of Egyptians are preparing to celebrate their successful revolution against long-standing president Hosni Mubarak on Friday, February 18, prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi will deliver the sermon of the weekly prayers from Tahrir Square in Cairo.Hundreds of thousands are expected at tomorrow's rally, so Qaradawi - who issues fatwas mandating suicide bombings against Jews in Israel - will have quite an audience.
Qaradawi, the present of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) will deliver the sermon at an invitation from a coalition representing the youth of the Egyptian revolution, OnIslam.net has learned.
The invitation was extended in gratitude to Qaradawi’s role in mobilizing support for the Egyptian revolution.
Thousands of Egyptians are set to gather in Tahrir Square to celebrate their success in ousting Mubarak.
Qaradawi has been banned from his native Egypt for 30 years.
Based in Qatar, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam. He currently serves as president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFW), and is a highly influential spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi has twice (in 1976 and 2004) turned down
opportunities to serve as the Brotherhood’s highest-ranking leader. His preference, he explains,
is 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 affiliations with the aforementioned groups, Qaradawi is founder and president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars, which has issued several anti-Zionist fatwas (religious edicts). He is chairman of the IslamOnline website, which has published numerous articles and religious rulings which were anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and supportive of violence against non-Muslims. He is also chairman (in absentia) of the board of trustees at the Michigan-based Islamic American University (IAU), a subsidiary of the Muslim American Society. And he is 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.
Qaradawi was born in Egypt in September 1926 and, following the early death of his father, was raised by an uncle. He 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.
After attending the Al-Azhar Theological Seminary in Cairo, Qaradawi served as dean of the Islamic Department at
the Faculties of Shariah and Education in Qatar from 1977 to 1990. Next he went to
Algeria, where he was chairman of the Islamic Scientific Council at
the Islamic University and Higher Institutions in 1990–91. Qaradawi then returned
to Qatar and was appointed director of the Seerah and Sunnah Center at
Qatar University, a post he continues to occupy to this day.
From 1998-2000, Qaradawi was a board of directors member with the Islamic Society of Boston, whose founder and first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi -- an avid supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, now incarcerated on terrorism-related charges.
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.
One of Qaradawi's foremost passions is his deep and unwavering hatred for, and distrust of, the Jewish people. He has unambiguously justified Palestinian suicide bombings as legitimate responses to alleged “Zionist” aggression and occupation. In 2004 he 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."
During a press conference around that same time, Qaradawi added that suicide bombings were "weapons to which the weak resort in order to upset the balance because the powerful have all the weapons that the weak are denied." On another occasion, he 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."
Qaradawi has authored more than 100 books on Islam, and he hosts a popular weekly television program called "Shariah and Life" on the Arabic television station and satellite network Al Jazeera. During one particular April 2004 telecast, he praised Allah for providing Palestinians with the means to transform themselves into "human bombs.”
Also in April 2004, 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.”
That same year, 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."During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Qaradawi declared that Muslims were obliged to support the terrorist group Hezbollah in its combat operations against Israel.
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 the 2007 Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) trial (which examined evidence of HLF's fundraising on behalf of Hamas), the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 of HLF's "unindicted co-conspirators" and "joint venturers." Among HLF's unindicted co-conspirators were many individuals affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Hamas, including Qaradawi, Omar Ahmad, Abdurahman Alamoudi, Abdallah Azzam, Jamal Badawi, Mohammad Jaghlit, Mousa Abu Marzook, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and Ahmed Yassin. Among the organizations named on the list were the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Hamas, INFOCOM, the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Arab Youth Association, the United Association for Studies and Research, and the North American Islamic Trust.
In a January 2009 speech that aired on Al Jazeera, Qaradawi said:
"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews]At a January 2009 "Gaza Victory Rally" in Qatar, Qaradawi declared:
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."
"The only thing that I hope for is that as my lifeQaradawi then beseeched the deity not to "spare a single one of them." "Oh Allah," he said, "count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one."
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 a February 2010 interview with BBC Arabic, Qaradawi reaffirmed his
support for suicide bombings:
"I supported martyrdom operations. This is a necessary thing, as I told them inIn an October 2010 interview with Al-Jazeera, Qaradawi was asked whether Muslims should try to acquire atomic weapons "to terrorize their enemies." He replied that such an objective was permissible, saying he was "happy" that Pakistan already possessed such a weapon. According to Qaradawi, the procurement of such agents of mass destruction was in compliance with Koranic verses urging Muslims "to terrorize thereby the enemy of God and your enemy."
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."
Also in late 2010, Qaradawi stated: "We must irrigate [the] tree of freedom with our blood. We must not leave the Palestinians alone." Every Muslim, he elaborated, "must play his part to help our brothers in Palestine until they obtain their right. Not one inch of the Land of Islam must remain in the grasp of infidels and occupiers."
Due to his support for Palestinian terrorism, Qaradawi has been barred
from entering the United States since 1999. In February 2008, the United
Kingdom also denied his visa on grounds
that "[t]he UK will not tolerate the presence of those who seek to
justify any act of terrorist violence...”
