33 Facts About Yasir Qadhi

Yasir Qadhi was born on January 30,1975 and is a Pakistani American Muslim scholar and theologian.

Yasir Qadhi is dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas.

Yasir Qadhi was formerly the dean of AlMaghrib Institute and taught in the religious studies department at Rhodes College.

Yasir Qadhi currently serves as chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.

Yasir Qadhi earned his PhD from Yale University where his dissertation focused on the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah.

Yasir 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.

Yasir Qadhi has consistently been listed in the annual listicle The 500 Most Influential Muslims.

Yasir Qadhi was previously affiliated with Salafism, but has since left it.

Yasir Qadhi now identifies himself as a Wasatist and has been described as such.

Yasir Qadhi was born in Houston, Texas to Pakistani Muhajir parents.

Yasir Qadhi's father, a doctor by profession, founded the first mosque in the area, while his mother is a microbiologist, both from Karachi in Pakistan and whose ancestral homeland is Uttar Pradesh in India.

Yasir Qadhi returned to the United States after working and studying for nine years in Saudi Arabia.

Yasir Qadhi completed a doctorate in theology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Yasir Qadhi taught in the Religious Studies Department of Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Yasir Qadhi previously was the Dean of Academic Affairs and an instructor for the AlMaghrib Institute, a seminar-based Islamic education institution founded in 2001.

Yasir Qadhi moved to the Dallas metropolitan area in early 2019, becoming the resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center.

Yasir Qadhi is the Dean of Academic Affairs at The Islamic Seminary of America.

Yasir Qadhi was a guest on an episode of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates's television genealogy series Finding Your Roots on PBS.

In 2006, at a conference at Harvard Law School, Yasir Qadhi presented a 15-minute analysis of the theological underpinnings of an early militant movement in modern Saudi Arabia headed by Juhayman al-Otaibi.

Yasir 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 not shirk but said it is haram, sinful, an evil innovation, and called it a stepping stone and gateway to shirk but not shirk in and of itself.

Yasir Qadhi has stated that these Muslims should still be regarded as Muslims, though misguided.

Yasir Qadhi 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.

Yasir Qadhi 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.

Yasir Qadhi has 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.

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, Yasir Qadhi believes that Islamic teachings don't support or require that Muslim business owners discriminate or refuse service to LGBTQ individuals.

Yasir Qadhi was threatened with death for his denouncing of ISIS.

Yasir Qadhi later stated that he regretted those comments and visited the Auschwitz concentration camp with a delegation of Muslim leaders.

Yasir 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.

In July 2010, Yasir Qadhi was selected to participate in an official delegation of eight US imams and Jewish religious leaders to visit the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau.

On June 8,2020, Yasir Qadhi was interviewed by Muslim theologian Mohammed Hijab, where he was asked about the perfect preservation of the Qur'an, in light of different Qira'at and Ahruf.

Yasir Qadhi has since clarified in a video uploaded to the EPIC Masjid's YouTube channel that his statements were referring to the preservation of the Qira'at and Ahruf themselves rather than the preservation of the Qur'an.

Yasir Qadhi reiterated that disbelief in the perfect preservation of the Qur'an is considered "kufr"; disbelief in Islam itself.