Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi

Biographical Information
"Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an Egyptian Muslim scholar and Islamist preacher. He is best known for his program, ash-Shariah wal-Hayat on Al Jazeera that has an estimated audience of 40 million worldwide, and for IslamOnline, a popular website that he helped found in 1997. He has also published more than 80 books, including The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam and Islam: The Future Civilization. He is the winner of eight international prizes for his scholarly contributions and is considered one of the most influential Islamic scholars living today. He has long had one of the more prominent roles within the thought leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, but twice turned down offers for the official directorship role of the organization, in 1976 and 2004. He is a trustee of the Oxford University Center for Islamic Studies and has been named as the technical consultant for a multi-million dollar epic movie in English on Prophet Muhammed produced by Barrie Osborne. A 2008 Foreign Policy poll put him at No.3 in the list of the Top 20 Public Intellectuals worldwide. Some of his views have been controversial in the West. "


 * President (2004 at least), European Council for Fatwa and Research