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Today we have a topic I think of extreme relevance and importance in light of the fact that yesterday we lost someone who is arguably the most iconic scholar of not just our era but frankly of our century.

Somebody who's life span literally span an entire Hijri century, 100 years, he was beginning his 100th year, Hijri years, 96 Gregorian years.

And of course the scholar is none other than Sheikh Al-Lama Yusuf Al-Karadawi.

And he was without a doubt the most beloved scholar to the largest group of the Ummah it is factually correct to state that no one of our era rivaled his popularity and respect.

And yet still as with all such figures he was also the subject of controversy and even rejection by some segments of the Ummah.

In today's lecture I will insha Allah to try my best to be analytical and factual.

I will try my best to summarize the positive and what others claim is the negative and contextualize that and summarize the key points not just of his biography but of his legacy.

And did he really try to do how and why did he rise to such popularity and fame?

And of course in the process as well what did he do that irritated so many large groups of people as well such that he was banned from many countries.

He was on the quote unquote terrorist list of not just our country but even some Muslim countries and what not.

So today's lecture insha Allah hope to summarize in 45 minutes or so as much as possible.

But I would also like to state for the record you should be aware even though I'm going to try to be neutral I'm going to try to be historical.

You should be aware that I am biased of course I'm biased we're all biased and I have my own position towards this person.

And I have said many times many times and I'm not making a secret of this that I am somebody who considers myself to be inspired by his writings and who views him with the utmost respect.

And I will be again I'm trying to be unbiased but you must know my biases because no matter how unbiased you try to be still your biases are going to be known and shown.

So I will confess and I have no problems in this confession that I view Sheikh Karlawi to be if not the moujet did of our era definitely amongst the moujet did of our era.

And I have been fortunate and blessed to benefit from and be inspired by many of his fatawa.

And I quote a lot of times I will say oh this is the position of Sheikh Karlawi meaning it's my opinion but I'm going to quote Karlawi and use him to back up my opinion.

Many times if you ask me a question I will say this and I'm also somebody who has read many of his books and I was very blessed and fortunate to have a one on one audience with him a few years ago

where I asked him a series of questions if we have time we'll talk a little bit about that as well so I met him in Doha and I interacted with him for a few hours.

So with that bias put aside very clearly let us begin summarizing his life, his times, his activism, his methodology, some of his most significant fatwas and some of the controversial fatwas that raised some eyebrows and maybe even more than just some eyebrows.

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