Imran Nazar Hosein (born 1942) is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian

Islamic scholar In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...

, author and philosopher, who specializes in

Islamic eschatology Islamic eschatology ( ar, علم آخر الزمان في الإسلام, ) is a field of study in Islam concerning future events that would happen in the end times. It is primarily based on hypothesis and speculations based on sources from ...

world politics The terms "world politics" or "global politics" may refer to: *Geopolitics, the study of the effects of geography on politics and International Relations (IR) * Global politics, a discipline of political science which focuses on political globalizat ...

, economics, and modern

socio-economic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their loc ...

/political issues. He is the author of ''Jerusalem in the Qur'an'' and other books.

Background and education

Hosein was born into an

Indo-Trinidadian Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians or Indian-Trinidadians and Tobagonians, are people of Indian origin who are nationals of Trinidad and Tobago whose ancestors came from India and the wider subcontinent beginning in 1845. Indo-Trinidadians an ...

family in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. He studied Islam under the guidance of the Islamic scholar,

Muhammad Fazlur Rahman Ansari Muhammad Fazlur Rahman Ansari (14 August 1914 – 3 June 1974) was a Pakistani Islamic scholar and philosopher. He was the founder of the Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies and Founder President of the World Federation of Islamic Missions. ...

at the

Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies The Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies ( ur, ) (or Islamic Center) is a university of Islamic & Modern Sciences located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. The institution is run by the World Federation of Islamic Missions. History The Aleemiy ...

, Karachi, Pakistan. He also did post-graduate studies in Philosophy at

Karachi University The University of Karachi ( sd, ; informally Karachi University, KU, or UoK) is a public research university located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Established in June 1951 by an act of Parliament and as a successor to the University of Sindh ...

, and International Relations at the University of West Indies, Trinidad, and the

Graduate Institute of International Studies Graduate may refer to: Education * The subject of a graduation, i.e. someone awarded an academic degree ** Alumnus, a former student who has either attended or graduated from an institution * High school graduate, someone who has completed high ...

, Geneva, Switzerland. He led the

Jumu'ah In Islam, Friday prayer or Congregational prayer ( ar, صَلَاة ٱلْجُمُعَة, ') is a prayer ('' ṣalāt'') that Muslims hold every Friday, after noon instead of the Zuhr prayer. Muslims ordinarily pray five times each day according ...

prayers and delivered the sermon at the

United Nations headquarters zh, 联合国总部大楼french: Siège des Nations uniesrussian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций es, Sede de las Naciones Unidas , image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004.jpg , im ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

once a month for ten years.

Positions

Sheikh Hosein opposes

fiat currency Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was some ...

, describing it as 'bogus, fraudulent, Haram and an amazingly dangerous instrument of oppression and universal slavery' although based on the Islamic principle of necessity he states that 'we are permitted to use it until such time as we can escape from its poisonous, deadly and sinful embrace'. He proposes that fiat currency be removed 'through the creation of micro-markets which use only Sunnah money and which are a part of remotely-located Muslim Villages.'

Opposition

Ebrahim Desai, who ran the website

Askimam Askimam is a website providing information regarding Islam. It was founded by South African Islamic scholar and jurist Ebrahim Desai in 2000. The answers on this website are reflections of the juristic views of the Hanafi Deobandi school of th ...

, claimed Hosein has deviant positions, such as rejecting certain authentic hadiths and diverting from the consensus opinion. For example, he issued a

fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist ...

, an Islamic legal opinion, discouraging Muslims from listening to his talks. A second fatwa by the same scholar said that due to his views some hadiths of

Sahih al-Bukhari Sahih al-Bukhari ( ar, صحيح البخاري, translit=Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī), group=note is a ''hadith'' collection and a book of '' sunnah'' compiled by the Persian scholar Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī (810–870) around 846. A ...

are fabricated and Gog and Magog have already been released. Two other Islamic websites have published articles espousing similar views. Hosein has been banned from speaking at Mucurapo Mosque.

Literary works

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

* 1942 births Living people 20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam Trinidad and Tobago Muslims Anti-Zionism in North America Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni Trinidad and Tobago expatriates in Pakistan University of Karachi alumni University of the West Indies alumni Al-Azhar University alumni Islamic religious leaders Muslim missionaries Trinidad and Tobago people of Indian descent Trinidad and Tobago writers {{Islam-bio-stub