Senior Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, who was based in Qatar and was a spiritual leader for the Muslim Brotherhood, died on Monday, according to a post on his official Twitter account.
The Egyptian-born cleric, who was in his 90s, was highly critical of Egypt's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
Considered a respected Muslim scholar and ideologue, al-Qaradawi pushed for Islamic modernism, which aims to reconcile the faith with Western ideas and values such as democracy, equality and civil rights.
He was also considered by many to be a moderate in Islamist circles of thought and has come out in favor of democracy, donating blood for victims of the September 11 attacks, protecting rape victims and banning honor killings, among other issues. '
انتقل إلى رحمة الله سماحة الإمام يوسف القرضاوي الذي وهب حياته مبينا لأحكام الإسلام، ومدافعا عن أمته.. نسأل الله أن يرفع درجاته في عليين، وأن يلحقه بالنبيين والصديقين والشهداء والصالحين.. وحسن أولئك رفيقا. وأن يجعل ما أصابه من مرض وأذى رفعا لدرجاته.. اللهم آمين pic.twitter.com/euoUztZeMQ
— يوسف القرضاوي (@alqaradawy) September 26, 2022
Israeli women are 'not like other women'
However, he has also garnered some hostility from the West in the past for statements condoning Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli citizens, according to the BBC. In a 2004 interview, the cleric said that he does not consider an Israeli woman to be "like women in our societies, because she is a soldier."
"I consider this type of martyrdom operation as evidence of God's justice," he reportedly continued. "Allah has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have...the ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do."
"Allah has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have...the ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do"
Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi
He was also associated with many radical and controversial religious decrees and was alleged to have issued a fatwa that all Americans in Iraq are combatants and "the abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation," according to the Middle East Media Research Institute citing Asharq Al-Awsaf.