the 500 most influential muslims - The Royal Islamic Strategic ...

scholars of Islam as Senior Fellows, appointed from all over the world by Royal Decree. The institute’s
various aims are to serve the Islamic community worldwide through sound scholarly work,
dispelling misconceptions and fallacies about Islam and fostering dialogue and cooperation between
different schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
GüLEN MOVEMENT
TURKEY
gülen, fethullah
Fethullah Gülen is a preacher, thinker and educator, who having assumed the leadership of a
religious movement Nurcu—started by Said Nursî (1878-1960 CE)—has gone on to become a
global phenomenon in his own right. His popularity and authority in Turkey has been the driving
force of the social movement that is widely thought to have brought around the social and eventually
political changes of which politician Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the ultimate heir—that is
the enfranchisement of Muslim politics in Turkey. Despite his peaceful means of preaching and
community organization, Gülen is hated by the secularist establishment in Turkey and has been
living in the US since 1999. The Gülen Movement started out as a distinctly Turkish movement but
has since spread worldwide. Gülen has schools in almost every corner of the globe.
HEZBOLLAH
LEBANON
nasrallah, seyyed Hasan
Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah is the current and third secretary general of Hezbollah (the Party of
God). Hezbollah is a Twelver Shi‘a Islamic political party and paramilitary organization based
in Lebanon. Political and military successes have made Nasrallah a vastly influential figure in
Lebanon, and in the Middle East more broadly. Hezbollah’s ideology is based on seeking social
justice through Islamic ideals. Hezbollah appears at first to be a Lebanese national party, however
its broad support from across the Middle East from individuals and communities supporting the
idea of revolutionary Shi’ism have made it a global network. It has a significant following in Iran
and Syria.
MARJAIYYA
IRAQ
sistani, his eminence grand ayatollah ali husseini
Ali Husseini Sistani, a Grand Ayatollah and Twelver Shi‘a marja is currently the highest-ranking
Shi‘a religious scholar in Iraq and leads the seminary of traditional Shi‘a Islamic studies in Najaf.
Since the Iraq war, Sistani has played a wider political role in Iraq. He has been referred to as a
key figure in the so-called ‘Shi‘a revival’, for his central place in the Marjaiyya (the community of
Marjas).
TABLIGHI JAMAAT
PAKISTAN
abd al wahhab, hajji mohammed
Abd al Wahhab is the leader of the Pakistan-based organization, Tablighi Jamaat, which has chapters
in 120 countries. The movement's Raiwind Tablighi Ijtima annual conference, in the Punjab,
Pakistan drew 1.5 million attendees in 2008. With approximately three million members attending
the annual Biswa Ijtima conference in Bangladesh, the Tablighi Jamaat is an increasingly influential
Muslim network from South Asia.
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INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC NETWORKS