Youssef Qaradawi

Youssef Qaradawi was the most impor­tant leader of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and wasthe move­men­t’s de fac­to spir­i­tu­al leader. He was also the “spir­i­tu­al guide” for Hamas and his fat­was in sup­port of sui­cide bomb­ings against Israeli cit­i­zens were uti­lized by Hamas to jus­ti­fy their oper­a­tions. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to head the Egypt­ian Broth­er­hood after the death of the Supreme Guide then denied that he has any rela­tion­ship with the Egypt­ian Broth­er­hood. Qaradawi was the head of the Union of Good (UOG), and the for­mer leader of the Euro­pean Coun­cil for Fat­wa and Research (ECFR), as well as the for­mer leader of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS). He was based in Qatar, held Qatari cit­i­zen­ship, and had said the Qatari Emir had pro­tect­ed him from being des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist by the US. He amassed sub­stan­tial wealth by serv­ing as the Shari’ah advis­er to many impor­tant Islam­ic banks and funds. Qaradawi was banned from enter­ing the US, the UK and France. Qaradawi made a num­ber of extrem­ist state­ments, includ­ing pre­dict­ing that Islam will con­quer Europe through peace­ful means, call­ing Hitler a divine pun­ish­ment for the “mis­deeds of the Jews”, say­ing that he want­ed to end his life “in the ser­vice of Jihad” by vis­it­ing Israel and throw­ing a bomb, call­ing for the death of all Jews, call­ing for attacks on US troops and civil­ians in Iraq, and call­ing for the col­lapse of the US if it doesn’t end its “unjust ways.” In 2018, an Egypt­ian court sen­tenced him in absen­tia to life in prison for alleged “incite­ment to mur­der,” “spread­ing false news,” and “van­dal­iz­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty.” Qaradawi died in Sep­tem­ber 2002 at the age of 96.