Sheikh Dr. Yasir Qadhi
The teacher whose Seerah series this encyclopedia is built from.
Yasir Qadhi is an American Muslim scholar and theologian, born in Houston, Texas, to Pakistani parents. His 101-episode series on the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is the source this entire site is drawn from — see about this project for how.
Education
He first took a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Houston, then spent some ten years at the Islamic University of Madinah, where he completed a diploma in Arabic, a BA in Hadith Studies, and an MA in Islamic Theology. He went on to a PhD at Yale University with a dissertation on the scholarly contributions of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Positions
- Dean of The Islamic Seminary of America.
- Resident scholar at the East Plano Islamic Center in Texas.
- Chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.
- Formerly dean of the AlMaghrib Institute, and formerly of the religious studies department at Rhodes College.
He is a prolific author and speaker, and is counted among the most influential Muslim scholars in the United States; his name appears regularly on The 500 Most Influential Muslims list.
The Seerah series
The series runs across 101 episodes, from the world before the Prophet's ﷺ birth to his passing in Madinah. What marks it out — and what shaped how this site is written — is its sourcing discipline: reports are weighed rather than simply retold, weak and popular narrations are named as such, and where the scholars differ the difference is stated instead of smoothed over.
The lectures are on YouTube, and the transcripts of all 101 episodes are published as PDFs by their maintainer:
- The Seerah of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ — official YouTube playlist
- Transcripts of the series (arqadhi.blogspot.com)
- yasirqadhi.com — his own website
This page is a short introduction for readers of this site, drawn from his own published biography at yasirqadhi.com. It is not part of the Seerah encyclopedia proper, and this site is not affiliated with him or with the transcript project.