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JEDDAH: Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the religious chief of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood who died on Monday on the age of 96, has left behind a toxic legacy of hatred and Islamic supremacy.

Al-Qaradawi was formally the chairman of the Worldwide Union of Muslim Students, a place he held for 14 years from its institution in 2004.

Extra importantly, he was one of many fountainheads of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious-political group that has been sanctioned and proscribed by Gulf states and plenty of Western nations.

Based in 1928, the Brotherhood established itself within the mid-Twentieth century as the primary opposition motion in Egypt, in addition to in different nations within the area. Cairo blacklisted the motion as a terrorist group in 2013.

A BBC Information web site report of 2004, quoting an Arabic-language web site, mentioned Al-Qaradawi was born in a small village within the Nile Delta in 1926 and studied Islamic theology at Al-Azhar College in Cairo, from the place he graduated in 1953.

Between 1949 and 1961, he was imprisoned a number of occasions in Egypt over his hyperlinks to the Muslim Brotherhood and accusations that he ordered the assassination of political figures.

The Brotherhood’s followers had been seen throughout the Islamic world as fanning non secular hatred and selling a cult of violence as a way to obtain political energy.

In a 2019 tweet, Al-Qaradawi claimed he was not a preacher of hate and that he had spent the previous 25 years selling reasonable thought.

“I stood towards extremism and extremists for about 1 / 4 of a century. I noticed its risk to deen and dunya (faith and the temporal world), on the person and society, and I’ve bolstered my pen, tongue and thought (to assist) the decision for moderation and reject exaggeration and negligence, both within the discipline of fiqh and fatwa (Islamic jurisprudence and authorized pronouncement in Islam) or within the discipline of tableegh and da’wah (steerage and preaching),” he tweeted on the time.

Nevertheless, his monitor document revealed precisely the other. He justified suicide bombings, particularly in Palestine, repeatedly spoke out towards Jews as a neighborhood, and issued fatwas (non secular edicts) that demean ladies.

In a fatwa on his web site, he acknowledged that martyrdom is a better type of jihad. And in a infamous 2004 interview on the BBC’s Newsnight program, he praised suicide bombings in Israeli-occupied Palestine as martyrdom within the title of God.

“I supported martyrdom operations, and I’m not the one one,” he mentioned.

He additionally inspired Muslims who had been unable to battle to financially assist mujahideen (these engaged in jihad) in all places in overseas lands. This might hardly be described as a stand towards terrorism

In 2008, he was refused a visa by the UK Dwelling Workplace to go to the nation to obtain medical therapy. David Cameron, the previous Conservative Occasion chief, described Al-Qaradawi as “harmful and divisive” in his enchantment to the federal government to reject the visa software.

The Dwelling Workplace mentioned: “The UK won’t tolerate the presence of those that search to justify any acts of terrorist violence or categorical views that might foster inter-community violence.”

On the time, Al-Qaradawi was already banned from getting into the US. In 2012 he was barred from getting into France.

Al-Qaradawi grew to become a well-known title in Arabic-speaking Muslim communities together with his weekly look on the non secular phone-in program Al-Shariah wa Al-Haya (Islamic Legislation and Life), that was broadcast to hundreds of thousands worldwide.

Al-Qaradawi issued fatwas authorizing assaults on all Jews. On Al Jazeera Arabic in January 2009, he mentioned: “Oh God, take Your enemies, the enemies of Islam … Oh God, take the treacherous Jewish aggressors … Oh God, rely their numbers, slay them one after the other and spare none.”

He held an identical disdain and deep-seated hatred of Europeans. That Al-Qaradawi was an Islamic supremacist with a complete disregard for European civilization and tradition may very well be gauged from considered one of his lectures on Qatar TV in 2007.

“I believe that Islam will conquer Europe with out resorting to the sword or combating. Europe is depressing with materialism, with the philosophy of promiscuity and with the immoral concerns that rule the world — concerns of self-interest and self-indulgence,” he mentioned.

“It’s excessive time (Europe) awakened and located a means out from this, and it received’t discover a lifesaver or a lifeboat apart from Islam.”

On his present in 2013, Al-Qaradawi blasted Muslim nations as weak, and referred to as on residents to overthrow their governments and launch a battle towards all who oppose the Brotherhood, describing them as “khawarij” (enemies of Islam).

Many intellectuals and commentators within the Arab world seen his lectures as harmful regurgitation of Islamist dogma out of contact with the fashionable world.

When an rebellion started in Egypt towards the rule of long-time President Hosni Mubarak, Al-Qaradawi supported the protesters in his TV broadcasts and issued an edict forbidding safety personnel from opening hearth on them.

Upon his return to Egypt in 2011, he started to guide Friday prayers for lots of of 1000’s of individuals in Tahrir Sq. per week after Mubarak’s resignation.

“Don’t let anybody steal this revolution from you — these hypocrites who will placed on a brand new face that fits them,” he instructed the gang.

Nevertheless, Al-Qaradawi was compelled once more into exile in 2013 when the army overthrew Mubarak’s successor Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood loyalist, following mass protests towards his insurance policies.

Al-Qaradawi condemned what he described as a “coup” and appealed to all teams in Egypt to revive Morsi to what he referred to as his “respectable submit.”

Al-Qaradawi was sentenced to dying in absentia by an Egyptian courtroom in 2015 alongside different Brotherhood leaders.