Abd al-Hayy Yusuf

Abd al-Hayy Yusuf, kunya Abu Umar, is a Sudanese preacher and scholar born in Cairo on 21 Rajab 1384 AH, corresponding to 25 November 1964. ¹

He serves as dean of the College of Islamic Studies at the International University of Africa and is imam and khatib of the Khatim al-Mursalin complex in Khartoum; he is known for his oratorical style and classical Arabic in his lessons and lectures, and for his public positions in Sudanese affairs. ¹

He grew up in Cairo, where he received his early education, then continued in Sudan to secondary level at the Evangelical School. Accepted into the University of Khartoum's commerce faculty, he left in his first year on being accepted at the Islamic University of Madinah, where he memorised the Qur'an in the Prophet ﷺ's Mosque and took his bachelor's degree from the College of Sharia in 1407 AH; he then completed postgraduate studies at the University of Khartoum in 1998, taking a master's and a doctorate. ¹

He headed the Islamic Culture Department at the University of Khartoum, where he is an associate professor, and later became dean of the College of Islamic Studies at the International University of Africa; he is imam and khatib of the Khatim al-Mursalin Islamic complex in Khartoum, with regular lessons there, among them an explanation of Bulugh al-Maram after Fajr and a tafsir lesson after Maghrib. ^{1 2}

He has lectured in several countries, among them the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Turkey, Algeria, Qatar and Egypt, and has taken part in dawah caravans across Sudan's states. ¹

He owned the Tayba satellite channel, broadcast through the Al-Andalus media production and distribution company; on 30 December 2019 the Sudanese Minister of Culture and Information ordered the company's broadcasting stopped. ¹

His lectures, lessons, fatwas and sermons are published on his YouTube channel, 'Dr. AbdulHay Yousif'. ³

His transcribed lessons were collected as 'Durus al-Shaykh Abd al-Hayy Yusuf' in 52 lessons, transcribed from audio by IslamWeb. ²

His books include a commentary on the Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi and 'Wajib al-Ulama nahwa al-Umma' (The Duty of Scholars toward the Umma), and he supervises dawah projects in Sudan. ^{1 2}

This section sets out what the sources report; it is not a verdict by the museum.

The sources describe him as firm upon the Sunna and its defender, sharply critical of secular and communist currents and openly opposed to Twelver Shi'ism, while favouring dialogue with other Islamic currents. ^{1 2} His fiqh method is described as reliance on the textual evidence; the Shamela biography states that he is not bound to the Maliki school as an adherent but inclines to it, especially in questions he has not researched — a stated inclination, not an affiliation with a school, so no school is recorded for him in the museum's data. ²

In October 2019 the Sudanese Minister of Youth and Sports, Walaa al-Boushi, sued him over a Friday sermon at the Khatim al-Mursalin mosque in Jabra in which he accused her of apostasy and heresy for sponsoring a women's football competition; the Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Nasr al-Din Mufarreh, said he was stirring strife, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok declared his full support for the minister in her court case. ¹

• The Arabic Wikipedia article on him (revision consulted 25 October 2026); his biography in Al-Maktaba al-Shamela with the introduction to his transcribed lessons; and his YouTube channel (@AbdulhayYousif).
• The sources are defined in data/source/.