Hamza Yusuf

Hamza Yusuf
Hamza Yusuf at Yale University, 2016.
Title	Shaykh
Born	Mark Hanson (1958-01-01) January 1, 1958 (age 59) Walla Walla, Washington, U.S.
Era	Modern era
Occupation	Islamic scholar, author
Religion	Islam
Denomination	Sunni
Jurisprudence	Maliki
Movement	Sufi
Sufi order	Shadhili
Website	www.sandala.org

Hamza Yusuf (born January 1, 1958) is an American Islamic scholar, and is co-founder of Zaytuna College. He is a proponent of classical learning in Islam and has promoted Islamic sciences and classical teaching methodologies throughout the world.

He is an advisor to the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He also serves as a member of the board of advisors of George Russell's One Nation, a national philanthropic initiative that promotes pluralism and inclusion in America. 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 is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that "Hamza Yusuf is arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar." Similarly, The New Yorker magazine reported that Yusuf is "perhaps the most influential Islamic scholar in the Western world."

Yusuf was born as Mark Hanson to two academics in Washington state and he was raised in northern California. He grew up a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian and attended prep schools on both the east and west coasts. In 1977, after a near-death experience and reading the Qur'an, he converted to Islam from Christianity (he seemed destined for the Greek Orthodox priesthood at his early age). Yusuf has Irish, Scottish and Greek ancestry.

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 Institute, more often on a one-on-one basis with Islamic scholars. Yusuf became fluent in the Arabic language and also studied Qur'anic recitation (tajwid), rhetoric, poetry, law (fiqh) and theology (aqidah) among other classical Islamic disciplines.