The World of Jinns - Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

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• published: 27 Sep 2015
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Hamza Yusuf is a cofounder and current president of Zaytuna College, located in Berkeley, California. He is an advisor to Stanford University’s Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. He also serves as vice-president for the Global Center for Guidance and Renewal, which was founded and is currently presided over by Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, one of the top jurists and masters of Islamic sciences in the world. Recently, Hamza Yusuf was ranked as “the Western world’s most influential Islamic scholar” by The 500 Most Influential Muslims, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin, (2009). Hamza Yusuf is one of the leading proponents of classical learning in Islam. He has promoted Islamic sciences and classical teaching methodologies throughout the world. He has also been a strong advocate for social justice, peace, and conviviality among peoples and places. For several years, he has argued that the “them versus us” problem is fundamentally flawed, as he considers himself one of “them” as well as one of “us.” Hamza Yusuf has served as an advisor to many organizations, leaders, and heads of state. He has been an innovator in modern Islamic education, founding the highly imitated Deen Intensives, and with Shaykh Ibrahim Osi-Afa, he started the first Rihla program in England, which has been running for over fifteen years. Dozens of young Muslims who were influenced by his call to reviving traditional Islamic studies in the West went to the Muslim lands in the nineties and early part of the current decade to study, many of who are now teachers in their own right.Hamza Yusuf's contribution to the development of Islam in England has been described as "immense", "considerable", and "enormous", by the academic Haifaa Jawad in her recent book, Towards Building a British Islam. With Eissa Bougari, Hamza Yusuf initiated a media challenge to the Arab world that resulted in a highly successful cultural religious program that he hosted for three years and was one of the most watched programs in the Arab world during Ramadan. Cambridge Media Studies stated that this program had a profound influence on subsequent religious programming in the Arab world. He has also been interviewed on BBC several times and was the subject of a BBC documentary segment The Faces of Islam, ushering in the new millennium, as it aired at 11:30pm on Dec. 31st 1999. Hamza Yusuf has been a passionate and outspoken critic of American foreign policy as well as Islamic extremist responses to those policies. He has drawn criticism from both the extreme right in the West and Muslim extremists in the East. Ed Hussain has written that Hamza Yusuf’s teachings were instrumental to his abandoning extremism. Hamza Yusuf is an American Muslim scholar, Yusuf was born as Mark Hanson to two academics in Washington State and raised in Northern California. He grew up a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian and attended prep schools on both the east and west coasts. In 1977, after a near-death experience and reading the Qur'an, he converted to Islam from Christianity. The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that "Hamza Yusuf is arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar." Similarly, The New Yorker magazine reported that Yusuf is "perhaps the most influential Islamic scholar in the Western world". Education: Soon after converting, Yusuf moved to England, Spain, and eventually Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates to pursue serious study of Islam. There he primarily studied Arabic and also served as a muezzin of a local mosque. There he was introduced to Mauritanian scholars and began more serious study of various Islamic disciplines including Maliki fiqh. This eventually led him to travel to Mauritania itself in order to study directly with the renowned scholar and sage of the land, Sidi Muhammad ould Fahfu al-Massumi, more famously known as Murabit al-Hajj. During his intermittent stays there, Yusuf both lived and studied directly with Murabit al-Hajj. Hamza Yusuf has also authored several encyclopedia articles and research papers. His published books include The Burda (2003), Purification of the Heart (2004), The Content of Character (2004), The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi (2007), Agenda to Change our Condition (2007), Walk on Water (2010), and The Prayer of the Oppressed (2010).