Shaykh Abdallah Al-Kadi
Shaykh Abdullah Al-Kadi was born in the city
of al-Ahsa located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, 800 miles
east of Makkah al-Mukarramah. During the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad,
may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, al-Ahsa was known
as Hajar and was the site of the second jumu'ah prayer of Islam. The
city remains today as a place famous for its tradition of scholarship.
At age sixteen, Shaykh Abdullah moved to the city of Dammam, and it
was there that he received his Bachelors degree in Architecture and
Planning from King Faisal University. He was appointed as teaching assistant
while he worked towards his Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning,
which he obtained in 1988. From that point, he was promoted to lecturer
and taught Planning Legislation at the graduate level until he went
to the United States in 1991. In July of that year, he entered the PhD
program in the Urban Studies Department of Portland State University,
Oregon where he obtained a second Masters Degree in the summer of 1995
and completed his PhD in Urban Studies in the spring of 1996.
Since 1979, Shaykh Abdullah al-Kadi has been actively pursuing Islamic
knowledge at an intense level. He has been the student of several well-respected
Muslim scholars, completing a number of books with them and has been
actively teaching in numerous locations worldwide for several years.
Every day, between Maghrib and 'Isha prayers and for two hours after
'Isha, it was his custom to attend the numerous different study circles
led by these scholars. Shaykh Abdullah Al-Kadi began memorizing the
Quran at the age of twenty and, by the blessings of Allah, was able
to complete its memorization within two years. He read the Quran with
shaykhs and also studied tajwid, tafsir, and usuul at-tafsir with several
famous scholars. In addition, Shaykh Abdullah studied hadith, usuul
al-hadith, fiqh, usuul al-fiqh, al-fara'id (inheritance law), and Arabic
grammar with great scholars. Shaykh Abdullah al-Kadi has been given
ijazah by several of the Islamic scholars with whom he has come into
contact. He studied the Quran with shaykhs who have a sanad in this
discipline that goes back to the Prophet, may the peace and blessings
of Allah be upon him. He received ijazah from Shaykh Muhammad Yasin
al-Fadani (d. 1990) to narrate all the books of hadith such as Sahih
al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Ibn Khuzaymah, and an-Nasai. In addition,
Shaykh Isma'il al-Yanabi (d. 1993) gave him ijazah in the books of hadith
as well as the books of the Shaf'i School of Islamic Law such as Al-Umm
of Imam ash-Shaf'i, Minhaj at-Talibin, and the Majmu of Imam an-Nawawi
among others. Shaykh Abdullah al-Kadi has been involved in teaching
all these subjects to students of Islamic knowledge in Dammam, Saudi
Arabia where he served as Imam of Masjid an-Nawawi for six years. He
has also taught in Portland, Oregon; Abiquiu, New Mexico; New Brunswick,
New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; and Manchester England.
