Islam and Islamism Today: The Case of Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

• Author: DeAtkine, Norvell B

Islam and Islamism Today: The Case of Yusuf al-Qaradawi

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201001.helfonts.islammodernityqaradawi.html

By Samuel Helfont, FPRI Adjunct Scholar

Reviewed by Norvell B DeAtkine

Building on the background obtained from the research for his two books--Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Islam and Modernity and The Sunni Divide: Understanding Politics and Terrorism in the Arab Middle East--Samuel Helfont dissects a piece of the Islamic political puzzle, a puzzle that continues to confound Western analysis. Qaradawi, born in Egypt, received a doctorate from al-Azhar University. He became an activist in the Muslim Brotherhood and his teaching reflects much of the political ideology of the Brotherhood. Having been arrested earlier in a purge of the Muslim Brotherhood by President Abdul Nasser, Qaradawi took refuge in Qatar.

A quick leaner, Qaradawi hitched early onto the fledgling Al-Jazeera, establishing himself as an Islamic "televangelist" with a wide audience for his sermons on the daily problems in living an Islamic life. He also launched two Islamic web sites popular throughout the Muslim Sunni world (his ridicule of the Shi'a's excludes them), and became known as a centrist eschewing the Wahhabis and westernizing reformists.

Helfont makes the point that Qaradawi is a modern Islamic scholar in that he...