Hamza Yusuf (born Mark Hanson; 1 January 1958) is an American Islamic scholar. A pioneer of Islamic neo-traditionalism, he has promoted Islamic sciences and classical teaching methodologies throughout the world.
Yusuf co-founded Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California in 1996 as Zaytuna Institute. He is an advisor to both the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and the Islamic Studies programme at Stanford University. In addition, he serves as vice-president for the Global Center for Guidance and Renewal, which was founded and is currently presided over by Abdallah bin Bayyah. He also serves as vice-president of the United Arab Emirates-based Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, where bin Bayyah also serves as president. The Forum has attracted huge controversy for its close ties to the UAE government, its support for authoritarian leaders since the Arab Spring, and support for the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE. Yusuf has denied, in his 2023 address as Toronto's RIS Conference, that the Forum's statements reflect his personal opinions and that he has "never been in favor of normalization."
Yusuf has been listed in the top 50 of The 500 Most Influential Muslims publication. His detractors, however, have widely criticised him for his stance on race, politics, the Syrian revolution, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Early life and education
Yusuf was born as Mark Hanson on 1 January 1958 in Walla Walla, Washington to two academics working at Whitman College, and was raised in northern California. He attended prep schools on both the East and West coasts. In 1977, after a near-death experience in a car accident and reading the Qur'an, he converted to Islam. He mentioned several concepts that were present in both Christianity and Islam, and described his conversion as a "fulfillment".
After being impressed by a young couple from Saudi Arabia who were followers of Abdalqadir as-Sufi—a Scottish convert to Islam and leader of the Darqawa Sufi order and the Murabitun World Movement—Yusuf moved to Norwich, England to study directly under as-Sufi. In 1979, Yusuf moved to Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates where he spent the next four years studying Sharia sciences at the Islamic Studies Institute of the United Arab Emirates University, more often on a one-on-one basis with Islamic scholars. and theology (aqidah) among other classical Islamic disciplines. In Mauritania he developed his most lasting and powerful relationship with Islamic scholar Sidi Muhammad Ould Fahfu al-Massumi, known as Murabit al-Hajj.
Scholarly career
Zaytuna College
Yusuf, Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian founded the Zaytuna Institute in Berkeley, California, United States, in 1996, In fall 2010, it opened its doors as Zaytuna College, a four-year Muslim liberal arts college, the first of its kind in the United States. It incorporates Yusuf's vision of combining the classical liberal arts—based in the trivium and quadrivium—with rigorous training in traditional Islamic disciplines. It aims to "educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders". Zaytuna College became the first accredited Muslim campus in the United States after it received approval from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Interfaith
Yusuf participates in the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies hosted by the UAE. He praised the UAE for its increasing tolerance and its adoption of multi-faith initiatives and plans to build a multi-faith centre in Abu Dhabi.
Views and influence
Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre currently places him 36th on its list of the top 500 most influential Muslims in the world. In its 2016 edition, Yusuf is described "as one of the foremost authorities on Islam outside of the Muslim world" by The 500 Most Influential Muslims, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin.
Yusuf has taken a stance against religious justifications for terrorist attacks. He described the 9/11 attacks as "an act of mass murder, pure and simple". Condemning the attacks, he also stated that "Islam was hijacked ... on that plane as an innocent victim." Yusuf was also one of the signatories of an open letter to former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that sought to refute the principles promoted by the terrorist organization.
Yusuf has been involved in controversies in recent years on issues of race, politics, and the Arab revolutions, including as a result of his support for the Abraham Accords and UAE government, and for "positing blame on the Palestinians for their suffering".
2016 Black Lives Matter comments
In December 2016, Yusuf made comments that were perceived as critical of the tactics employed by the Black Lives Matter movement. He argued that, "The United States is probably, in terms of its laws, one of the least racist societies in the world." He also stated that, "We have between 15,000 and 18,000 homicides per year. Fifty percent are black-on-black crime, literally." He added, "There are twice as many whites that have been shot by police, but nobody ever shows those videos." Yusuf was criticized for these comments, including on social media.
Publications
{| class="wikitable"
|+
Publications and works by Hamza Yusuf
!Title
!Description
!Year
!Type
|-
|Agenda to Change our Condition
|<small>Co-authored with Zaid Shakir</small>
|1999
|Books and Pamphlets
|-
|Imām al-Zarnūjī, Instruction of the Student: The Method of Learning
|<small>Translated by G.E. Von Grunebaum.</small>
|2001
|Books with a foreword or introduction
|-
|Beyond schooling: building communities where learning really matters
|<small> Also includes essays by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy L Sayers and Nabila Hanson. Re-edited in 2010 as Educating Your Child in Modern Times: How to Raise an Intelligent, Sovereign & Ethical Human Being.</small>
|2003
|Books and Pamphlets
|-
|Imām Busiri, The Burda: Poem of the Cloak
|<small>Includes a CD of performances by The Fez Singers feat. Bennis Abdelfettah.</small>
|2003
|Translations
|-
|Mostafa Al-Badawî, The Prophetic Invocations
|
|2003
|Books with a foreword or introduction
|-
|Shaykh Al-Amin Mazrui, The Content of Character
|<small>Foreword by Ali Mazrui, son of the author.</small>
|2004
|Translations
|-
|Imām Mawlūd, Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart
|<small>Translation and commentary of the poem Maṭharat al-Qulūb composed by a 19th-century Mauritanian scholar.</small>
|2004
|Translations
|-
|Imām Ṭaḥāwī, The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi
|
|2007
|Translations
|-
|Caesarean Moon Births: Calculations, Moon Sighting, and the Prophetic Way
|Available in
- Caesarean Moon Births Part 1
- Caesarean Moon Births Part 2
|2008
|Books and Pamphlets
|-
|Climbing Mount Purgatorio
|
|2008
|Papers
|-
|The Prayer of the Oppressed by Imām Muhammad bin Nasir al-Dar'i
|<small>Includes a CD of performances by The Fez Singers.</small>
|2010
|Translations
|-
|Joseph Lumbard, Submission, faith and beauty: the religion of Islam
|<small>Co-edited with Zaid Shakir.</small>
|2009
|Edited Books
|-
|Hamza Yusuf, Walk on Water: The Wisdom of Jesus from Traditional Islamic Sources
|
|2010
|Article
|-
|Reza Shah-Kazemi, Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism: Spiritual and Ethical Affinities
|
|2010
|Books with a foreword or introduction
|-
|Hamza Yusuf & Robert P. George, Pornography, Respect, and Responsibility: A Letter to the Hotel Industry
|
|2012
|
|-
|Hamza Yusuf & Robert P. George, Hotels and the Pornography Plague: An Example of Moral Responsibility from Scandinavia
|
|2013
|
|-
|Asad Tarsin, Being Muslim: A Practical Guide
|
|2015
|Books with a foreword or introduction
|-
|Shaykh Al-Amin Ali Mazrui, The Content of Character: Ethical Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
|Translation and Introduction by Hamza Yusuf. Collected by Shaykh Al-Amin Ali Mazrui
|2015
|Translation and Introduction
|-
|Edwin Arnold, Pearls of the Faith
|
|2017
|Edited and Prefaced
|-
|Scott F. Crider, The Art of Persuasion Aristotle's Rhetoric for Everybody
|The Zaytuna Curriculum Series
|2019
|Books with a foreword or introduction
|-
|Shaykh Ahmad Badawi Tayyib al-Asma, The Mindful Messenger: Occasional Supplications of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
|
|2022
|Translations
|}
Poems
See also
- List of Sufis
- Abdallah Bin Bayyah
- Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad
- Zaid Shakir
- Murabit al-Hajj
- Timothy Winter
- Ali al-Jifri
- Umar bin Hafiz
- Nazim Al-Haqqani
- Umar Faruq Abd-Allah