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Recordings › A Reply to Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi on Sahih Al-Bukhari| Mufti Abu layth · 21 Aug 2019 › Segment 3 of 8

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How did Shaykh al-Yaqoubi become so influential in the UK?

muftis tariqah tareeqah turuq tareeqa sufi order 'alim aalim sheikh shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs ummah umma ummat deobandis deoband barelwi brelvi barelwis ibadah ibada ibaadah ibadat

How al-Yaqoubi rose to prominence in Britain through the Barelvi community

LessonRecorded 21 Aug 2019BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-BukhariSegment 3 of 8 in the recording2019-08-21b-S03

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This segment6:36 to 10:33 · 3 min 57 sGeneral teaching

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After his earlier UK hosts parted with him, al-Yaqoubi found a devoted following in the Barelvi community of the Midlands and the north, learnt to avoid praising Deobandi scholars, and rose to prominence, wealth and power on its back.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth says al-Yaqoubi had been visiting the UK for years without serious prominence until, around the late 2000s, the people who used to host him parted ways with him amid what he says was claimed to be a scandal he knows nothing about, and he was then fostered by people in the north. In the Midlands and the north, he says, there is a very strong Barelvi community, and al-Yaqoubi discovered in it a potential he had not realised: a level of devotion bordering on hero worship that the American students around him in Damascus had not shown. He recalls that one of al-Yaqoubi's early speeches in Birmingham praised Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanwi [?], the Deobandi scholar, in a Barelvi setting, a mistake he says al-Yaqoubi swiftly learnt never to repeat, after which he acclimatised to Deobandi-Barelvi politics and quietly distanced himself from the Deobandi heritage of the subcontinent because the market lay with the Barelvis. He says the Barelvis absorbed al-Yaqoubi completely and wanted more, and that he rose to great prominence on their back, with doors of wealth, money and power opening as people who run corporations backed him.

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Transcript

machine6:36 to 10:33 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
6:18

cult at all not even remotely at that stage unbeknownst to him the future was to unfold many things amongst them great power Allah so over the years he's obviously chef Jacoby has come to the UK but this is nothing new Shelia who be had been coming to the UK for many years never gained any serious prominence he used to come down cells and people would take him on tour tours and things like this but I think it was

6:57

around maybe the late 2000s maybe it was around 2010 or maybe a bit before that maybe like mm NATO sonae I don't know exactly but it was around the late 2000s that there were some politics went on and he the people that used to involve themselves with Jeff yaqoob' kind of ditched him and they boycotted him and I think they claimed there was some scandal or something but I don't know usually scandals are always to do with women usually but I whatever the situation was by suppose that's buried

7:36

why why did I mention it are they gonna hate me for say relax I'm sure he's answered a I'm sure he's answered but there was whatever so they left him chef Thiago be was then kind of fostered by people up north now in the north within the UK we have Midlands and North we have a very strong bravery community now what chef here who be was to discover was that it was a great potential hidden within the DC community that he hadn't realized the kind of

8:14

level of devotion borderline hero worship that goes on within the DC community I don't think he was truly exposed to that because the people he was exposed to in Damascus were kind of like students that were going over from America and from and they weren't that kind of they weren't the kind of hero worship kind of they were that maybe one or two but not so many now he then embarked on this thing and you can see this transformation so he comes to Birmingham and he comes to come call via and you'll see one of his great initial speeches of chef yaku

8:53

B was one way he actually praised mallanna a charlatan we the great the open D Scala in a Braille we must a mistake that chef yaku B was swiftly to learn that is never to be repeated so chef yaku be soon acclimatized to the kind of DC politics of the do Bundy's embroideries and quite swiftly in time would distance himself completely from the do bond the kind of heritage of the subcontinent not entirely but he would kind of go a bit quiet on it because he

9:31

realized that ok the market lies with the Braille v's the brilli is really absorbed chef yaku be I mean he could not share he Akoo be could not give them enough he completely consumed anything that he had to offer and wanted more so sure he aku be really found you know like they say in Arabic like what did that Barletta who you know he found what he was looking for this this was it I mean he rose to great prominence on the back of

10:09

the DC community within the Midlands and the north of England because they took it to another level I mean we're talking about unfathomable doors unlocking both of wealth prosperity money power dynamism I mean it's it's amazing people with great you know people that run corporations and things like this they will back you as a piece odd so his shift kind of really wound to this you see this and and then he kind of comfortably settled as this tariqa I've run this study are you're all my kind of

Paragraphs overlapping 6:36 to 10:33. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2019-08-21b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/otqqc3k4hwa/s/3/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, August 21). How did Shaykh al-Yaqoubi become so influential in the UK? [Video, segment 2019-08-21b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/otqqc3k4hwa/s/3/
Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "How did Shaykh al-Yaqoubi become so influential in the UK?" Video, segment 2019-08-21b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded August 21, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/otqqc3k4hwa/s/3/
BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-08-21b-S03,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{How did Shaykh al-Yaqoubi become so influential in the UK?}},
  year = {2019},
  month = {8},
  date = {2019-08-21},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/otqqc3k4hwa/s/3/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/otqqc3k4hwa/s/3/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2019-08-21b-S03, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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