| Formation | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Muhammad Alshareef |
| Type | 501(c)3 organization [1] |
| 27-0091991 | |
| Location | |
Area served | United States |
| Products | Seminars |
Key people | Yasir Qadhi |
| Website | www |
AlMaghrib Institute is a 501(c)(3) Islamic studies organization founded in Houston, Texas, by Muhammad AlShareef in 2002. [1] [2] [3] [4] AlMaghrib provides courses on Islam in a six-day, two-weekend intensive seminar and other courses in a shorter, three-day, single-weekend format. [2]
Most of AlMaghrib instructors are graduates of the Islamic University of Madinah, [5] which is why AlMaghrib is characterized as Salafi in ideological orientation, despite founder Muhammad AlShareef's commitment not to use labels other than "Islam" and "Muslim". [6]
AlMaghrib's instructors include the following Islamic scholars, who are listed on AlMaghrib's website. [7]
AlMaghrib's founders are working toward establishing an M.A. and Ph.D.-granting Islamic seminary with a permanent campus in the United States, featuring teachers as full-time faculty. [8]
AlMaghrib has received a significant amount of public scrutiny because recordings by Anwar al-Awlaki, the highest English-speaking cleric in Al-Qaeda, continued to be sold at AlMaghrib events, although AlMaghrib banned these in 2009. [9]
In addition, analysts have studied students of the Institute who were later involved in terrorist actions or plots, and speculated about the teachings of the Institute. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who in December 2009 attempted to detonate plastic explosives on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, was found to have taken a class at the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston. [10] Abdulmutallab claimed that al-Awlaki had also been a student at AlMaghrib. [9]
"It's ironic that he came to us," said instructor Yasir Qadhi of AbdulMutallab. [11] Qadhi told CNN, "At some level, we did not convince him of the validity of our views," and "that is cause for regret". [11]
The following former students at the Institute were later implicated in illicit activities: Daniel Maldonado, a convert to Islam, was convicted in 2007 of training in Somalia with a group linked to Al Qaeeda militia. Tarek Mehanna, a pharmacist, was convicted for conspiracy, in a case widely criticized by journalists and civil libertarians. [12] Two young American men were held in Pakistan in 2009 for seeking to train with militants. [9] [13]
On the other hand, some other American Salafi groups have accused AlMaghrib of being "liberal" and "apolitical." As a result of this external and internal scrutiny, AlMaghrib has attempted to change its image and avoided the public use of any classification as "Salafi". [9] AlMaghrib Vice President, Waleed Basyouni, said "[AlMaghrib] institute's stance against extremism, violence and other related subjects has always been clear ... We unequivocally condemn it in all its forms." [14]
Alshareef has been banned from entering Denmark. [15]
The Salafi movement or Salafism is a revival movement within Sunni Islam, which was formed as a socio-religious movement during the late 19th century and has remained influential in the Islamic World for over a century. The name "Salafiyya" refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors", the first three generations of Muslims, who are believed to exemplify the pure form of Islam. In practice, Salafis maintain that Muslims ought to rely on the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the Ijma (consensus) of the salaf, giving these writings precedence over later religious interpretations. The Salafi movement aimed to achieve a renewal of Muslim life and had a major influence on many Muslim thinkers and movements across the Islamic world.
Qutbism is an exonym that refers to the beliefs and ideology of Sayyid Qutb, a leading Islamist revolutionary of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. Influenced by the doctrines of earlier Islamists like Hasan al-Banna and Maududi, Qutbism advocates armed Jihad to establish Islamic government, in addition to promoting offensive Jihad.
The Islamic University of Madinah is a public Islamic university in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Established by King Saud bin Abdulaziz in 1961, the institute is said to have been associated with Salafism, while claiming to have exported Salafi-inclined theologians around the world. Others disagree and state that the institution is objective and scientific, being detached to any singular ideology. It received institutional academic accreditation without exceptions from the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment in April 2017.
Yasir Qadhi is a Pakistani American Muslim scholar and theologian. He is dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas. He was formerly the dean of AlMaghrib Institute and taught in the religious studies department at Rhodes College. He currently serves as chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni Islamic scholar and lecturer who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials argued that Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda, and in June 2014, a previously classified memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Justice was released, justifying al-Awlaki's death as a lawful act of war. Civil liberties advocates have described the incident as "an extrajudicial execution" that breached al-Awlaki's constitutional right to due process, including a trial.
Jihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West. It has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, who extensively campaigned against non-Muslim nations in the name of jihad.
Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism or radical Islam refers a set of extremist beliefs, behaviors and ideology within Islam. These terms remain contentious, encompassing a spectrum of definitions, ranging from academic interpretations to the notion that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior. Furthermore, these terms may extend to encompass other sects of Islam that do not share such extremist views.
Omid Safi is an Iranian-American professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He was the Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center from July 2014 to June 2019 and was a columnist for On Being. Safi specializes in Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. Before joining Duke University, Safi was a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was on faculty at Colgate University as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion from 1999 - 2004.
The Global Peace and Unity is a recurring two-day event/festival and conference held at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in Royal Victoria Dock, London, England and organized by the Islam Channel. It is the largest Muslim, interfaith and multicultural event of its kind in Europe. There have been six conferences since its inception. The first was on 4 December 2005, with others in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2013. The 2006 event attracted over 55,000 visitors from five continents. The conference includes an Islamic exhibition, an evening nasheed concert, as well as a series of talks, workshops, seminars and lectures from international speakers over two days.
Islamic modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge," attempting to reconcile the Islamic faith with modern values such as democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress. It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence", and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (Tafsir). A contemporary definition describes it as an "effort to re-read Islam's fundamental sources—the Qur'an and the Sunna, —by placing them in their historical context, and then reinterpreting them, non-literally, in the light of the modern context."
Jahmi was a term used by Islamic scholars to refer to the followers of the doctrines of Jahm ibn Safwan. The four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (fiqh) reject the Jahmi belief. Along with the Mutazilites, they proposed that the Quran is created.
Salafi jihadism, also known as revolutionary Salafism or jihadist Salafism, is a religious-political Sunni Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy of "physical" (military) jihadist attacks on non-Muslim and (takfired) Muslim targets. The Salafist interpretation of sacred Islamic texts is "in their most literal, traditional sense", which adherents claim will bring about the return to "true Islam".
The attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 occurred on December 25, 2009, aboard an Airbus A330 as it prepared to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport following a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam. Attributed to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the act was undertaken by 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab using chemical explosives sewn to his underwear. These circumstances, including the date, led to Abdulmutallab being commonly nicknamed either the "Underwear bomber" or "Christmas Day bomber" by American media outlets. It also could have been the worst plane crash in the history of Michigan beating out Northwest Airlines Flight 255.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab popularly referred to as the "Underwear Bomber" or "Christmas Bomber", is a Nigerian terrorist who, at the age of 23, attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, US on 25 December 2009.
Anwar al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni cleric killed in late 2011, who was identified in 2009 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a known, important "senior recruiter for al Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator.
Tarek Mehanna is a pharmacist convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, conspiracy to make false statements to the FBI, and two counts of making false statements. He was arrested on October 21, 2009, and sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on April 12, 2012. He is incarcerated at ADX Florence in Colorado, US. and is scheduled to be released on December 18, 2024, after serving 15 years.
Ebrahim Moosa is the Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought & Muslim Societies at the University of Notre Dame with appointments in the Department of History and in the Kroc Institute for International Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs. He is co-director of the Contending Modernities program at Notre Dame. He was previously Professor of Religion and Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is considered a leading scholar of contemporary Muslim thought. Moosa has been named as one of the top 500 Influential Muslims in the World.
According to Islamic tradition, the Quran was revealed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel (Jibril) in seven ahruf, translated variously as "styles", "ways", "forms" and "modes". Islamic scholars agree that the ahruf were styles used by the early Muslims to recite the Quran.
Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, is Thomas Lamb Eliot Professor of Religion and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order and Competing Visions of Islam in the United States: A Study of Los Angeles. He is one of the founding editors of a book series on Islam of the Global West published by Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. Both he and his books have been quoted and referred to a multitude of times. He has been named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and received a Guggenheim Fellowships Award in the Humanities for his work on the mosque in Islamic history.
Yasmin Mogahed is an American educator and motivational speaker. She is a specialist in spirituality, psychology, and personal development. Mogahed is the first female instructor at the AlMaghrib Institute.
