Muhammad Sadik Muhammad Yusuf

Muhammad Sadik Muhammad Yusuf ( Muhammad Sodiq ibn Muhammad Yusuf ibn Muhammad Ali , born in Andijan region (vilayah) on April 15, 1952.), the former mufti of the Muslim Spiritual Administration of Central Asia , Uzbekistan’s first mufti after independence. He is the most prominent theologian in the country and in an islamic world. Sheikh Muhammd Sodiq considered to be one of the top members of IUMS (International Union of Muslim Scholars) , one of the largest non-governmental organizations of Islamic scholars. He received his primary religious education from his father. He studied in Soviet middle school where, according to him, he was a straight-A student. After he finished middle school in 1970, Muhammad-Sodiq was accepted into the Mir-i Arab madrassa in Bukhara. He then studied at the Higher Islamic Institution in Tashkent, finishing with distinction in 1975. In 1976, Sheikh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammd Yusuf was admitted to ad-Dawa al-Islami National Islamic University in Libya, which he finished with distinction and a financial award. This period of study exposed him to a future generation of Muslim clerics, mostly from the Arab world but even reaching to places as far away as Japan. In 1997 Sheikh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammd Yusuf was put in charge of Muslim countries and federations of the Commonwealth of Independent States within Rabita al-Islamiya (Muslim World League), an international Islamic organization in Saudi Arabia. He is a permanent member of the governing council of this organization. From 1994 to 2000 he produced 60 percent of all his published work, including approximately thirty popular articles and twenty-five books and pamphlets. Most were written in Uzbek, and some were translated into Russian. The Kara Su branch of the press of the Islamic cultural center in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, published most of Muhammad-Sodiq’s writings during that period. In all of his books since 2002 he writes the following credo at the beginning, in the style of an Islamic movement that is seeking to transcend the divisions within the faith: Our motto: We aspire toward a true faith, toward a pure Islam, we desire to study the Qur'an and Sunna in order to follow them, and we want to spread the study of Islam. We want to follow the true Mujahids—the blessed ancestors [as-Salaf as-Salihun]; we want to spread toleration and brotherhood (of Muslims). We also want to eradicate religious illiteracy and to put a stop to our contradictions and splits, to purge our fanaticism, and our sinful affairs.¹