Okay, so picture this. You're at a dinner party.
It's a, you know, a nice polite gathering. On
your left, you have a chemical engineer from
Houston. Okay. A STEM guy. Logical, systems oriented,
speaks perfect American English. He probably
has very strong opinions on the best barbecue
in Texas. I can see him. Yeah. Standard suburban
success story. Yeah. Grounded, relatable. Totally.
But then on your right, you have a graduate from
the Islamic University of Medina. And I don't
mean someone who just like took a semester abroad.
Right. I mean someone who was immersed in 1990s
Saudi Arabia. Deeply traditional, rigid theology,
long beard, robes, the works, a hardcore Salafi,
as the term goes. OK, wow. Those are two very,
very different vibes. One feels very modern and
Western. The other feels, well, very ancient
and Eastern. Exactly. Now imagine they are the
same person. Oh. And just to make it even messier,
drop that person in the middle of a Ph .D. program
at Yale University, one of the most liberal,
secular, critical environments on Earth, studying
the very religion he holds sacred. That's a recipe
for an identity crisis. Or an explosion. Or,
as it turns out, a recipe for becoming one of
the most influential, and let's be honest, controversial
figures in Western Islam. Sheikh Dr. Yasser Qadhi.
We are talking about Sheikh Dr. Yasser Qadhi.
And today we are not just doing a biography.
We are looking at a brand new piece of research
that uses him as a kind of master key to unlock
this massive shift in how Muslims in America
see themselves. It really is a fascinating case
study. The article we're diving into today is
titled Between Religion and a Crisis, Yasir Qadhi's
Dawah as Islamic Practical Theology in Post -October
7 America. It was published just last month in
January 2026 by the scholar Elad Ben David. 2026.
So this is fresh off the press. Very fresh. And
the core mission of this deep dive is to explore
a specific evolution. We're looking at how American
Muslim leadership has transformed from the post
-911 era, which, as we'll get into, is largely...
defensive, apologetic. Keep your head down. Yeah,
exactly. From that to the post -October 7, 2023
era. Which, as the source argues, is so much
more assertive, politically engaged, and frankly,
completely unapologetic. Precisely. And we're
going to do this by unpacking two concepts that
might sound a little academic, but are actually
very, very grounded. Dawah and practical theology.
Okay, Dawah and practical theology. I want to
get into those definitions in a second because
they are clearly the pillars here. But first,
I think we need to set the ground rules. We are
dealing with some really heavy topics today.
The Gaza War, U .S. politics, theology, identity.
It's a minefield. Absolutely. And it is so important
to stay right up front. Our role here is to report
on the analysis that's provided in Elad Ben -David's
article. We are exploring how he interprets Yasir
Qadhi's sermons, his millions of YouTube views,
his public actions. Right. We're representing
this work material. We're staying impartial,
objective, just trying to understand the ideas
being presented. We aren't here to debate the
theology itself, but to understand how it's being
used to move a massive community through a time
of crisis. So we aren't taking sides. We are
taking a deep dive into the text. Let's start
with those terms then. Dawah. I feel like I've
heard this word before, and it's usually used
to mean missionary work, like trying to convert
people. That is the most common literal understanding.
Dawah comes from the Arabic root da. which means
to invite or to call. And historically, yes,
it often refers to calling non -Muslims to the
faith. The source actually has a term for this.
It calls it extra -Umayyadawa. Extra -Umayyadawa,
meaning outside the Ummah or the global Muslim
community. Correct. You can think of it as like
external marketing. You're trying to get new
customers to buy the product, so to speak. Right.
The have you heard the good news. Approach that
you see in a lot of religions. Exactly. But there
is a second type, which is absolutely crucial
for our discussion today. Intra -umeic dawah.
Intra? Inside. Inside. This is preaching that's
directed at Muslims. It's about guiding the community,
correcting behavior, or strengthening faith from
within. So if the first one is sales and marketing,
this one is, what, HR? Internal comms? That is
actually a perfect analogy. It's internal comms
and HR. It's not about getting new people in
the door. It's about managing the people you
already have. It's saying, hey, the world is
scary right now. The company is going through
a spiritual merger. And here is how we are going
to survive this as a team. That makes so much
sense. Because if your internal team is falling
apart, it doesn't really matter how good your
external marketing is. Not at all. And the source
gives us a really interesting quick history lesson
here. If you look back at the... classical period,
we're talking 7th to 17th centuries, Dalwa was
often political or theocratic. It was state -sponsored.
The government's job. The government's job. But
fast forward to the modern era, especially in
the West, and it changes completely. It becomes
about institutions. Things like the Muslim Students
Association, the MSA on college campuses, or
ICNA, the Islamic Circle of North America. So
it becomes grassroots. It moves from the palace
to the people. And then the Internet happens.
The source quotes Muzamil Siddiqui way back in
1998. 1998. Yeah. Pre -social media as we know
it, predicting that digital media would inject
new life into Dawei. And my God, was he right.
It moved from street corners and, you know, cassette
tapes. Remember those? Oh, I remember the cassette
tapes. Yeah. From that to a global virtual enterprise.
A click away. Which brings us right back to Yasir
Qadhi, who is an absolute titan on YouTube. But
before we get back to him, what about this second
term? Practical theology. That sounds like an
oxymoron. Theology is usually abstract, right?
Angels, the afterlife, the nature of God. It's
stuff you talk about in a library, not in a trench.
Usually, yes. That's what we call dogmatic or
systematic theology. But practical theology is
where the rubber meets the road. It's not just
about Akita, which is your creed or your doctrine.
Those things tend to stay pretty stable. You
believe in one God. You believe in the prophet.
That doesn't change day to day. Right. That's
the bedrock. That's the bedrock. Practical theology
is about the interaction between that belief
and praxis. Praxis is just a fancy word for action.
Practice. So it answers the... Question, okay,
I believe all this stuff. Now what do I do? Yeah,
exactly. When the world is on fire, when you
are facing a crisis, abstract doctrine is not
enough. You can't just say God is one and leave
it at that. You need to know how to navigate
trauma, how to navigate social tension and political
upheaval, all while keeping your faith intact.
So the source argues that Yasir Qadhi is using
his platform, his dawah, as a vehicle for this
practical theology. He's helping his followers
figure out how to live as Muslims in a very,
very turbulent America. It's almost like it's
a form of crisis management. It is exactly crisis
management. It's spiritual triage. And he's the
chief medic. That's a great way to put it. OK,
so we have the tools. We have the context. Now
let's meet the protagonist properly. We teased
his background in the intro, but let's really
unpack who Yasir Qadhi is, because his origin
story, it just seems to explain why he's so uniquely
positioned to do this kind of work. It really
does. I mean, his life is a series of contradictions
that somehow resolve. He was born in 1975 in
Houston, Texas, to Pakistani immigrant parents.
American kid. American kid. But he spent his
early life in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The source
does note, though, that he lived in a Western
bubble over there, an expat community. Okay,
so not fully immersed in local Saudi culture.
Right. Then he comes back to the U .S. for college
and gets that degree in chemical engineering
from the University of Houston. A STEM guy. Uh
-huh. And I think that matters, right? I mean,
engineers think in systems. They think in problem
-solution. There's a logic tree for everything.
Very much so. It gives his theology a certain
logical, almost flowchart -like structure. It's
very systematic. But then comes what the article
calls the Medina phase. Right. He goes back to
Saudi Arabia, this time not to an expat bubble.
He goes to the Islamic University of Medina for
a decade, a full 10 years. A decade. And the
source, it pulls no punches here. It describes
him during this time as a hardcore Salafi. Hardcore
Salafi. Let's define that for the listener who
might not be familiar with the term. We hear
the word a lot, especially in the news, but what
does it actually mean in this specific context?
So Salafism is a strict traditionalist movement
within Sunni Islam. The goal is to emulate the
Salaf, which means the ancestors. Specifically,
the first three generations of Muslims. So it's
about getting back to the pure, original form
of the religion. Exactly. It's often characterized
by a very literal interpretation of the Quran
and the Sunnah, and a rejection of later innovations
or interpretations in the religion. The source
notes that during this phase, Qadi's views were
quite rigid. How so? Well, he was harsh on other
Islamic sects, like Shias and Sufis. And the
article mentions he made some very controversial
statements regarding Jews during that time. He
was very much inside a specific theological silo.
He was playing by a very strict 7th century rule
book and applying it to the 20th century. That's
a good way of putting it. But then he comes back
to America in the early 2000s and eventually
lands at Yale. The Yale phase. And this is the
part of the story that just blows my mind. He
goes from Medina where the text is the final,
unquestioned, divine authority to Yale, where
that same text is just another historical artifact
to be dissected and critiqued. It's a massive,
massive jump. He enrolls in a Ph .D. program
in religious studies from 2005 to 2013. And this,
combined with the reality of post -9 -11 America,
triggers this huge transformation in him. Wait,
pause for a second. That sounds like a strict
young earth creationist deciding to go get a
Ph .D. in evolutionary biology at Oxford. Chuckles.
It's not far off. I mean, Yale is the Ivy League.
It's the home of critical historical analysis.
They don't treat religious texts as divine truth
in the classroom. They treat them as history.
historical documents written by human beings
in a specific time and place and context. Which
must have been unbelievably jarring for a guy
coming from a theology that says this is the
direct, unchangeable, eternal word of God. Jarring
is an understatement. The source describes this
period as his great transformation. He couldn't
just quote scripture anymore to win an argument.
He had to engage with Western philosophy, with
historical criticism, with deconstruction. He
had to defend his faith using the language of
the academy. And the source says this broke him
or made him. It evolved him. He moved from that
rigid Salafism to what the article calls mainstream
American Islam. He started to realize that the
strict seventh century style rulings he learned
in Saudi Arabia just. They just didn't work for
a Muslim kid growing up in New Jersey or Houston.
The context was totally different. You can't
tell a kid in Houston to live exactly like someone
did in the 7th century Arabia. It's a hard sell.
It's an impossible sell. Exactly. And I imagine
that didn't make him very popular with his old
friends from the Medina days. I bet. So he ends
up in this fascinating and probably lonely position
where he's criticized from both sides. To the
really rigid Salafist, he's a sellout. He's too
liberal, too watered down. He's compromised.
And to the other side. But to the American right
wing, or even the moderate center sometimes,
he's still seen as a radical because of his past.
his beard, his rhetoric. You know, they'll pull
up quotes from 20 years ago. You can't win. He
can't win. Yet, despite that, or maybe because
of it, he becomes a massive influencer. He occupies
this middle ground that so many American Muslims
actually live in. He bridges the gap. He can
speak Sheikh and he can speak American. He's
fluent in both. Precisely. And now, you know,
he's the chairman of the Peak Council of North
America. He's the dean of the Islamic Seminary
of America. And he has over 730 ,000 YouTube
subscribers. He is the voice people turn to when
they are confused, when they are in crisis. So
he's got the credentials, he's got the platform,
and he's got this hybrid identity forged in fire.
Now, let's look at how he handled that first
major crisis, 9 -11. The article calls this the
first crisis. Right. And to understand Qadi's
response then, we have to remember the context.
The scholar Larry Poston describes 9 -11 as a
watershed moment. You had the Patriot Act. You
had surveillance of mosques. You had Islamic
charities being shut down overnight, their assets
frozen. It was a terrifying time for American
Muslims. I remember that time well. The feeling
was very much about keeping your head down. Don't
speak Arabic on the plane. Don't wear the hijab
too conspicuously if you can avoid it. It was
pure survival mode. But actually, the source
points out a supreme irony here. 9 -11 didn't
just force Muslims to hide. In a strange way,
it actually forced them out of isolation. It
increased Islamic visibility because they had
to explain themselves. Oh, that's a really interesting
point. So they couldn't just stay in their ethnic
or religious enclaves anymore. Exactly. Before
9 -11, many immigrant Muslim communities were
content to just live their lives quietly, you
know, raise their families, build their mosques.
Afterwards, the media was at their door. The
FBI was at their door. They had to engage with
mainstream America. And Cottey's response during
this era, the article says, was defined by what
it calls civilizational bridge building. Bridge
building. That sounds nice, but it also sounds
defensive. It was entirely defensive. It was
apologetic. The goal was to protect the image
of Islam. The message was, please don't hate
us. We're good Americans, too. We pay our taxes.
We mow our lawns. We salute the flag. We are
not them. Exactly. Those guys had nothing to
do with us. The focus was on proving that Muslims
could be good citizens. It was about identity
formation, solidifying this idea of an American
Islam that was financially independent, indigenous,
and culturally. Integrated. And the source gives
a really specific example of this practical theology
in action during those post 9 -11 years. It brings
up the Innocence of Muslims film. Do you remember
that whole fiasco? Vaguely. It was around 2012,
right? Yeah. It was a really low budget, frankly,
garbage, blasphemous film that mocked the prophet
Muhammad in the most crude ways. And it caused
riots and protests worldwide. Embassies were
attacked. It was ugly. Right. And a lot of the
anger was visceral. It was pure rage. Pure rage.
And Qadi's response here is key to understanding
his mindset at the time. He didn't say go protest
or burn things down. He said. Don't just get
angry. Use the insult as a catalyst. First, for
spiritual devotion, get closer to God. Learn
more about your prophet to defend him better.
But secondly, for social engagement. And this
is where he brings up the Hilf al -Fugl, right?
This part of the article I found really cool,
but I need you to break it down. It seems so
strategic. It is a brilliant bit of theological
maneuvering. Hilf Afudu, or the League of the
Virtuous, was a pact of chivalry that the prophet
Muhammad was a part of in Mecca before he became
a prophet. Wait, wait, before he was a prophet?
So it's a pagan pact? Technically, yes. That's
the genius of it. It was a civic alliance between
various tribes in Mecca to protect the weak and
ensure justice for anyone who was wronged in
the city, regardless of their status or tribe.
The prophet was part of it as a young man. And
later, after he became the prophet, he looked
back on it and said, I witnessed a pact that
I would not exchange for a herd of red camels.
And if I were invited to it in Islam, I would
respond. You would still join it today. That
is a very specific strategic pull from history.
It's genius. Qadi uses this pre -Islamic precedent
to argue that American Muslims shouldn't just
do Islamic things. He says that fighting for
general social justice, civil rights, feeding
the hungry, protecting the weak gives you moral
credibility in the West. It's a religious duty.
So he's basically saying you don't just have
to join Muslim charities. You can join the ACLU.
You can fight for Black Lives Matter. You could
volunteer at a soup kitchen. Exactly. He framed
civil rights and social justice as fundamentally
Islamic duties, using a pre -Islamic source to
prove it. This allowed Muslims to integrate into
American civic life without feeling like they
were selling out their religion. They weren't
assimilating, they were practicing the Hilfal
Fudul. Precisely. That makes so much sense for
that era. It's a way to say, hey, being a good
American citizen is actually part of our sunnah,
our tradition. It's a way to integrate without
losing your soul. It is. It was the perfect theology
for its time. Yeah. But then comes October 7,
2023, and the source argues that everything,
and I mean everything, changes. The shift is
palpable. If the post -911 era was about defense
and apologetics. Bridge building. Bridge building.
Then the post -October 7 era is about. assertiveness
and political agency. The catalyst, obviously,
is the Hamas attack on October 7th and the subsequent
devastating war in Gaza. The sheer scale of the
destruction, the fact that it was all being live
streamed on our phones 24 -7. It sparked a profound
moral and political crisis, not just globally,
but specifically here in the U .S. And this is
where the source introduces a psychological concept
that I think is really, really important. Moral
injury. Moral injury. We usually hear that term.
associated with soldiers, right? Like doing something
in combat that goes against your deepest moral
code. Right. The classic example is I shot a
civilian and now I can't live with myself. It's
an injury to your soul. Yes. And the source cites
Sharida Hussain's study on Muslim military personnel.
But here it's applied to the broader American
Muslim community. The injury doesn't come from
holding a gun yourself. It comes from paying
taxes. It comes from living in a country whose
government is supporting actions that you find
morally abhorrent. It's the... Feeling of betrayal.
Yeah. Incomplicity. You spent 20 years doing
the Hillfell food rule, proving you're a good
American, building bridges, and then you watch
as your own government funds and arms a war that
is killing people who look like you, who pray
like you. Exactly. Seeing the images from Gaza
day after day and knowing that your tax dollars
are in some small way connected to it, that causes
a deep moral injury. It makes you question your
place in the country. It makes you ask, what
is my citizenship worth? So Cotty's job, as a
practical theologian, is to heal this injury.
Because if he doesn't, people might radicalize
in one direction, or they might just leave the
faith entirely in another, or they might just
fall into a deep, crippling depression. He has
to give them a path forward. So how does he do
it? He starts with a spiritual response. The
source calls it faith born of suffering. Which
sounds poetic, but how does it work practically?
Because people are angry. They're asking the
classic question. Why is God letting this happen?
It's the problem of evil front and center. And
Qadi reframes the entire narrative. He leans
heavily on the Islamic concept of Ibtila, which
means a test or a trial from God. He argues that
this crisis isn't random chaos. It's a divine
trial. And the proper response to a trial is
Sabra. Now, people often translate Sab as patience.
Which can sound very passive, like just sit there,
grin and bear it. God wills it, so just be quiet.
Right. And that's not what he's advocating. Qadi
redefines it here as patient perseverance or
spiritual resilience. It's active. It's endurance.
And he does this by connecting Gaza directly
to the Sira, the biography of the prophet. This
is where he brings up the story of Sumayya and
Ammar. Break that down for us. Who were they?
It's such a powerful story. They were some of
the very first converts to Islam in Mecca. We're
talking about the very, very beginning when Muslims
were a tiny, powerless, persecuted minority.
Sumayya was a slave woman. She, her husband Yasir,
and her son Ammar were tortured horribly in public
by the Meccan elites for their faith. And the
prophet, what could he do? Nothing. The prophet
Muhammad at that time had no political power.
He had no army. He couldn't physically save them.
The tradition says he walked by while they were
being tortured. Sumayya was eventually martyred,
becoming the first martyr in Islam. And he could
only say, Patience, family of Yasir, for your
destination is paradise. He could only offer
dua, or prayer. Wow. So he's drawing a direct
parallel. He's telling American Muslims, we are
in the Mecca phase again. We are powerless to
stop the physical suffering. Exactly. He argues
that just as that early persecution led to the
eventual victory of the Muslims, the current
suffering is part of a divine trajectory. It's
not random cruelty. It's a precursor to something
greater. It frames the Gazans not just as helpless
victims, but as martyrs in a grand cosmic narrative,
just like Sumaya. That's an incredibly powerful
reframing. It doesn't take the pain away. but
it takes the hopelessness out of it. It gives
the suffering a purpose, a meaning. It does.
And from that, he issues a direct challenge to
his audience. He calls it a spiritual upgrade.
He tells his listeners in his sermons, you cannot
be the same person today that you were last year.
You cannot be the same Muslim. What does he mean
by that? A spiritual upgrade. He uses the freedom
and comfort American Muslims have as a gratitude
exercise, but also as a responsibility. He says
your brothers and sisters in Gaza don't have
clean water to make voodoo, to wash for prayer.
They don't have safety. They don't have food.
You have all of this. How dare you waste it?
How dare you miss your prayers? So he's I mean,
it sounds a little like he's guilt tripping them
into piety. In a way, yes, but it's constructive
guilt. It's not meant to paralyze them. It's
meant to channel their grief and anger into piety
instead of despair. He's saying, honor their
sacrifice by being better Muslims. That is the
only thing you can control right now. And the
source notes that this actually had a ripple
effect beyond the Muslim community. There was
this surge of interest in Islam among Western
youth. The source calls it faith born of suffering.
Yeah, it was a phenomenon. The article mentions
some specific examples. The activist Sean King
converting during Ramadan in 2024. Right. And
a story about a young Texan man who converted
at Qadi's own mosque. Apparently, he had started
attending pro -Palestine protests and was just
so struck by the faith of the protesters and
the people in Gaza. So the argument is that.
Seeing the spiritual resilience of the Palestinian
people, literally thanking God amidst the rubble
of their homes, inspired people in the West to
ask, what kind of faith gives someone that kind
of strength? Exactly. It became the most powerful
form of dawah without anyone even trying. So
that's the spiritual side. Get right with God.
Use this pain to become a better Muslim. But
Qadi isn't just a spiritual leader. He's becoming
a political firebrand. And this is where the
assertiveness really comes in. This is part six
of our outline. And it's where things get very
heated. Oh, it gets very heated. This is where
Qadi moves completely beyond the good PR and
bridge building of the post 9 -11 years. He starts
holding power accountable. And interestingly,
he starts with his own. He starts by going after
Muslim leaders. The naming and shaming. He is
incredibly harsh on the leaders of Muslim -majority
countries in the Middle East. He labels leaders
who normalized relations with Israel, specifically
referencing the Abraham Accords as munafiqun,
hypocrites. Ouch. That is a theologically loaded
term. A munafiq in the Quran isn't just a liar.
It's someone who pretends to be a Muslim on the
outside but is secretly working against the faith.
It's an enemy from within. It's one of the worst
things that can be called in Islamic theology.
It implies you are destined for the lowest depths
of hell. It's a spiritual death sentence. And
he uses it to critique Egypt, Jordan, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE. He asked, where are your
armies? Where is your diplomatic pressure? Why
are you letting this happen on your watch? And
he uses another historical analogy here to really
drive the point home, right? The boycott of Banu
Hashim. Yes. Another story from the Meccan period.
The powerful Quraysh tribe decided to boycott
the Prophet's clan, the Banu Hashim. They cut
off all food and trade. They literally tried
to starve them into submission for years. A brutal
siege. A brutal siege. But there was a pagan
man, Zuhar ibn Abi Umayyah, who was related to
them. And he eventually stood up in public and
said, Are we to eat and drink while the Banu
Hashim are perishing? I will not rest until this
unjust boycott is torn up. And he physically
went and broke the boycott document. A pagan
man. A pagan man. Qadi uses this story to shame
modern Muslim leaders. He's saying even a pagan
in the 7th century had more humanity and tribal
loyalty than you, the leaders of Muslim nations,
do today. That is a s**t. scorching burn. I mean,
he is burning bridges with those governments.
He's making himself persona non grata. He is.
And that shows his independence. He's not on
anyone's payroll. He's an American cleric. And
he's using that freedom to speak his mind. But
OK, so he's yelling at foreign leaders. What
does he tell American Muslims to do? Because
he admits we can't send an army. We can't break
the blockade ourselves. It feels hopeless. Right.
He acknowledges what he calls the impossible
American context. American Muslims cannot offer
military aid. So he pivots. He pivots to civic
action. lobbying, voting, media work, protesting.
He calls it the logic of speech. Exactly. The
argument is, if you cannot fight injustice with
your hands, you must fight it with your tongue.
And if you can't even do that, you must hate
it in your heart, which is the weakest form of
faith. He argues that for American Muslims who
have freedom of speech, silence is a religious
failure. If you have a voice and you don't use
it, you are complicit. And he invokes American
heroes to make this point relatable to his audience.
He does. He brings up Muhammad Ali. Of course.
Muhammad Ali refusing the Vietnam draft on moral
and religious grounds. He brings up Malcolm X.
He frames them as models of righteous resistance
within the American system. He's telling his
followers, you don't have to choose between being
Muslim and being American. You be a good American
by resisting injustice, just like Ali and Malcolm
did. It's the most American thing you can do.
That is such a fascinating flip from the post
9 -11 Please like us. We're good citizens energy.
It's now we are going to use our American rights
to change America from within. It's a shift from
seeking acceptance to demanding accountability.
It's moving from may I please have a seat at
the table to this table is unjust and I'm flipping
it over. This brings us to the coalition building
because you can't change America alone. You need
allies. And this is where the article gets into
some really nuanced and, frankly, controversial
territory, especially regarding Jewish -Muslim
relations. This is critical, and it's where Kadi
has to walk a very, very fine line. He makes
a very specific, repeated distinction. Anti -Zionism
is not the same as anti -Semitism. Which is a
distinction that is, to put it mildly, hotly
debated in the public sphere right now. It is
the debate of the decade. But Kadi doubles down
on it. And he uses history to make his case.
He cites the golden age of Muslim Spain, Al -Andalus,
where Jews and Muslims flourished together. He
talks about Muslims protecting Jews during the
Holocaust, bringing up examples like Sultan Mohammed
V of Morocco or Muslims in France and Albania
who hid Jews from the Nazis. So he's trying to
establish that there is no inherent eternal war
between the two faiths. He's saying the conflict
is modern and political. Exactly. He's saying,
we don't hate Jews. We oppose this specific political
project of Zionism. And he's very strategic about
it. He goes out of his way to praise groups like
Jewish Voice for Peace and the ultra -Orthodox
anti -Zionist rabbis from Neturei Karta. He says,
these are our allies. We need to team up with
them. The source compares his approach to that
of another major American cleric here, Hamza
Youssef. How do they differ on this point? It's
a real study in contrast. The source notes that
Hamza Youssef has historically been more conciliatory
toward Israel and Zionism. His focus is on Abrahamic
ethical frameworks, highlighting the shared heritage
of the religions, the common ground. It's a let's
all get along approach. A kind of interfaith
kumbaya. A bit, yes. And it has its place. But
Qadi's approach is different. The source says
he's more confrontational toward the political
ideology of Zionism, but more explicitly conciliatory
toward Jews specifically as potential allies
against Zionism. That's a key distinction. One
seeks peace through broad shared commonality.
The other seeks a specific political alliance
against a specific policy. It's much more targeted.
Exactly. And this pragmatic and some would say
ruthless alliance building gets even more surprising
in the next section. The LGBTQ protest controversy.
Oh, right. This is where the practical theology.
Really, really gets tested because traditionally
conservative Islam and especially the Salafi
background that Qadi comes from is not exactly
LGBTQ friendly. Not friendly is putting it very
mildly. Theologically, Qadi's position is that
homosexual acts are major sins. That hasn't changed.
The article is clear on that. He hasn't become
a progressive liberal on social issues. OK, so
that's his baseline. That's his baseline. But
here's the conflict. You go to a pro -Palestine
protest in New York or London or on a college
campus, and who do you see? You see everyone.
You see the socialists, you see the students,
you see environmental groups, and you definitely
see pride flags. You see signs that say, queers
for Palestine. Right. And for a traditional conservative
Muslim, standing under a pride flag is problematic.
To say the very least. And some conservative
clerics, the article mentions a Salafi preacher
named Uthman ibn Farouk basically said, We can't
be there. We can't march with them. Yes. Ibn
Farouk argued for ideological purity. He said,
I cannot dilute my faith or be seen to endorse
something that God forbids by standing shoulder
to shoulder with it. He told Muslims to stay
away from those protests. So what does Qadi say?
Because he can't just suddenly say. It's fine,
right? That would destroy his credibility with
his entire conservative base. No, he doesn't
change the theology. He changes the priority.
This is the practical, impractical theology in
its purest form. He issues a ruling, a fatwa,
that says, look at the scale of the crisis. We
are talking about what he and many others describe
as a genocide in Gaza. So it's a triage situation.
Save the dying patient first, worry about everything
else later. Perfect word for it, triage. He argues
that the primary cause justice for Gaza, saving
lives, is halal, permissible, and it takes precedence
over the secondary issues. He says, don't lose
the forest for the trees. So he's essentially
telling his followers, the enemy of injustice
is my ally, even if we disagree on literally
everything else. Yes. He argues that unity for
the Palestinian cause overrides the need for
ideological purity in the protest lines. He says,
you aren't endorsing their lifestyle by walking
next to them. You are both walking for the same
child who is under the rubble in Gaza. That is
a massive pragmatic leap. It is the definition
of real politic in a theological context. It
is. He's essentially using an intersectionality
strategy, even if he would never, ever use that
word himself. He realizes that to leverage American
civic power, Muslims need numbers. They need
to be part of a broader coalition. And if you
start excluding potential allies because of theological
disagreements, you lose political efficacy. You
become pure. But you become irrelevant. That
is the core tension right there, isn't it? Purity
versus relevance. Exactly. And he chose relevance.
So let's zoom out. We've gone from the defensive
Hilfal Fadul Bridge building of 2001 to the assertive
name and shame coalition building of 2025. We've
seen Qadi navigate the spiritual crisis and the
political reality. What does the source say this
all adds up to? What is this new American Muslim
identity that he's helping to shape? The conclusion
of the article synthesizes this shift beautifully.
It says we have moved from a community that was
trying to be American in the sense of fitting
in, being accepted, proving their loyalty to
a community that is now trying to change America.
That's a powerful line from seeking approval
to seeking influence. And Cotty's practical theology
has three dimensions that enable this. First,
the spiritual dimension. Grief isn't allowed
to become despair. It's channeled into piety.
I am sad, so I will pray more. It's a coping
mechanism, but also a source of strength. Second,
the communal dimension. The global ummah is strengthened
through the shared moral outrage. American Muslims
feel more connected to the global body of Muslims
than ever before. The borders have dissolved
in their hearts. It's a powerful sense of solidarity.
And third, the political dimension. This is where
religious obligation is converted into civic
repertoires. Voting isn't just a civic duty anymore.
It's a religious act of resistance. Protesting
is a form of dawah. Speaking truth to power becomes
a form of worship. But the source also notes
a limitation here, doesn't it? It's not all victory
laps and triumphalism. No, it's not. And this
is a really crucial, sobering point. The source
is very clear. While this theology is incredibly
effective at building resilience and spiritual
strength and communal bonds, it has a very limited
ability to actually change the material reality
on the ground in Gaza. Right. A sermon in Texas,
no matter how eloquent or powerful. doesn't stop
a bomb in Rafah. Exactly. The bombs are still
falling. The blockade is still there. Kadi's
theology is one of endurance and fostering a
long -term political shift. It's not a magic
wand. It helps the community survive the trauma
and organize for the future, but it hasn't yet
stopped the source of the trauma. So it's a theology
for the long haul. It's building the spiritual
and political muscles for a fight that might
take a generation. That's the feeling you get
from the article, yes. This has been such a journey.
I mean, we started with a chemical engineer in
Texas, and we've ended with a global theological
shift. Yasir Qadhi really is the perfect case
study for this learner mindset. He's constantly
adapting his theology to fit the crisis at hand.
He's not static. He shows that theology isn't
just some static thing sitting in a dusty book.
It's alive. It breathes. It has to react to the
news cycle. It has to provide answers for the
moment. It has to or it dies and becomes irrelevant.
So here is the provocative thought I want to
leave our listeners with today. The source suggests
that this isn't just about Yasser Qadhi. He's
just the lens through which we can see this bigger
change. What we're seeing is a sign that Western
Muslims are no longer afraid that political dissent
will cost them their citizenship. They're not
afraid of being told to. go back where you came
from. Exactly. They are moving from being guests
in America who have to be polite and grateful
to being owners of their narrative who have a
right to be angry and a right to demand change.
And that raises a huge question, a question for
all of us. If this assertive, politically engaged
theology continues to grow, what does the future
of the American political landscape look like?
We are seeing a voting bloc that is religiously
motivated, highly educated, young, increasingly
affluent, and no longer willing to settle for
just being tolerated. They want a seat at the
head of the table. That is a massive new variable
for the next decade of U .S. politics. It's not
just a religious story anymore. It's a political
earthquake happening in slow motion. Indeed.
It's something every political strategist from
every party should be watching very, very closely.
Something for all of us to mull over. Thanks
for diving deep with us today. We'll see you
in the next one.