Iranian media is reporting that Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, aged 86, was married for the third time to a woman 37 years his junior. According to a Press TV report:
Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:26PM GMT 2 Top Egyptian octogenarian Sunni cleric and theologian, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has remarried for a third time. Al-Qaradawi, 86, married a Moroccan woman 37 years his junior in Qatar. According to Moroccan media the 49 year old women is a public employee in the capital city of Rabat. Sheikh Al-Qaradawi was born in a small village in Egypt’s Nile Delta in 1926. He studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he graduated in 1953. However, the Sunni cleric has lived and worked in the Persian Gulf littoral state of Qatar since 1961.In 1977, he founded the Faculty of Shari’ah and Islamic Studies in the University of Qatar and managed it until 1990. He has also been heading the Research Centre of Seerah and Sunna in the same university.
Qaradawi, a virulent anti-Semite is often referred to here as the most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, an acknowledgement of his role as the de facto spiritual leader of the movement. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to lead the Egyptian Brotherhood after the death of the Supreme Guide. Based in Qatar, As his large donation to the endowment project suggests, Sheikh Qaradawi has reportedly amassed substantial wealth through his role as Shari’ah adviser to many important Islamic banks and funds. He is also considered to be the “spiritual guide” for Hamas and his fatwas in support of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens were instrumental in the development of the phenomenon. A recent post has discussed a video compilation of Qaradawi’s extremist statements.