......beyond.......

Bismillah...Sallou 3alan Nabiyy

Assalamu3laikum...

I'm pretty sure that not many of us know Imam Hamza Yusuf
I'm very sure that only a few of us (esp those living in Malaysia, Egypt..) know that he is one of the Islamic Scholars
And I can say that many people don't know that he is a Scholar in USA..

Written down here is biography about Imam Hamza Yusuf

+ his English name was Mark Hanson
+ born in 1960 (now he's 49)
+ born in Washington and grew up in Northern California
+ raised in a Greek Orthodox family
+ son of US academic father and activist mother
+ he was sent to Catholic school for primary studies and there he was exposed to religion and began searching about religion
+ he once thought how's religion manifesting human's culture
+ has a wife and 5 childrens
+ embraced Islam at the age of 17 in 1977
+ became a Muslim in Santa Barbara, California after having a near-death experience in a car accident which led him to read the Qur'an and eventually to convert to Islam. (click here to know more about why he came to Islam)
+ spent 10 years studying Arabic and Islam in the Middle East and United Arab Emirates, Madina, Algeria, Morocco, and West Africa where he followed a more classic interpretation of the religion from several well-known scholars.
+ then, he returned to the USA and took degrees in nursing from Imperial Valley College and religious studies at San Jose State University.
+ After the attacks of 9/11, Yusuf emerged as a respected Islamic scholar, advising both the White House and the Arab League with other scholars that are invited to White House..
+interviewed by BBC for a reason of advising George W.Bush on Islam
+ in the interview he told to the world about the cause and the effect of tragedy of 9/11 and he alo about JIHAD. (click here to watch the video Part 1/1)
+ He is the co-founder of Zaytuna Institute, which is dedicated to the revival of traditional study methods and the sciences of Islam.
+ has translated several classical texts from Arabic

Imam Hamza Yusuf is struggling to wake up all the Muslims in West countries.
He once said that Islam is a religion of waking up. The Kafirin afraid of us a long time ago because The Muslims were all awakened. In the contrary, the Kafirin now are not afraid of Muslims anymore because Muslims now are sleeping. But, we, Muslims now have the potential to be like those Muslims in the Great Time (the time of arising) a long time ago if we are willing to rise up and if we choose not to remain in our sleep.

Not just that, he, on behalf of all the Muslims in the world speaks to the West world about Islam, the gap between Islam and West, the facets that the Western people should realize about Islam, the pain of the Muslims in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on, the pain of the Muslims in the non-Islamic country after 11/9 and many other facets.

It's very not easy to switch the paradigm of people in such country of money, knowledge, entertainment, fashion, games and other madness. But, I'm pretty sure, his emergent in America as a high-profiled Islamic scholar has opened peoples' eyes about the greatness of Islam and also Muslims' eyes about their role as they are living in such country.

Wallahua3lam