Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri settled in Canada several years ago and did nothing and now after many years talking about ‘change’

Some people have been asking why Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri left Pakistan and settled in Canada. Let’s examine here what caused him to leave Pakistan and what have been his activities during this time away from Pakistan.

After resigning from the National Assembly Dr. Qadri was disappointed with the parliament and the current political system. At that time itself he started raising voice against the corrupt system as it was obvious from his several paged long resignation in which he explained the reasons why he left parliament. He pointed out all the problems and the points he raised were similar to what he is saying now. But question is why he did not started his struggle against the current system at that point itself. The reason is at that time people still had hopes that newly elected government may be able to deliver so he wanted to give them enough time so that later they may not have said that they did not get sufficient time.

Now question is why he left Pakistan and moved to Canada?

Dr. Qadri sb. is one of the leading scholars in Islam of this time and has written and has been writing several books on various topics of Islam. As Qur’an is a guidance till the day of judgment, Dr. Qadri considered a need for a translation and tafseer of Qur’an that should reflect Quran’s guidance for our modern day problems. At the same time he realized that all the available books on the interpretations (Sharh) of Hadiths, although were excellent and organized to provide solutions to many problems, those were written hundreds of years ago and many issues and problems we face in the modern era for which Hadiths should have provided us a good solution were not being addressed by those existing Sharh books. It was just simply because our salafs who wrote those Sharhs did not experience those issues/problems in their times. Dr. Qadri felt a grave need to go through the volumes of Hadiths and organize them under new headings and write their interpretations so that solutions to modern day issues/problems could be available to Muslim ummah.

Here is a list of his published books as of now, as well as links to many online editions of these books. One thing to be noted that many of these books has been written during his stay at Canada:http://www.minhajbooks.com/english/control/Fehrist/books-index-by-shaykh-ul-islam-dr-muhammad-tahir-ul-qadri.html

Another mission of Dr. Qadri was to highlight the true picture of peaceful Islam to the World which was ruined by the terrorist activities of some extremists. Many people of the World started bracketing ‘terrorism’ with Islam. Dr. Qadri wanted to eradicate this wrong image of Islam. For which he planned to write a comprehensive Fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombings.

Yet another mission of Dr. Qadri has been to eliminate misunderstandings between different sects by bringing them closer. He wanted to highlight common points between the sects so that besides few differences of opinion all should respect each other.

Above mentioned are few of his projects out of many that he wanted to work on. All these were huge projects and needed a lot of uninterrupted literary work and dedicated effort. For example, as now he has completed Hadith work, he researched and analyzed hundreds of thousands of Hadiths, organized them and written Sharh of them. This work itself ended up in the compilation of 30+ volumes of Hadith books.

When Dr. Qadri started above mentioned work in Pakistan, he was continuously being interrupted by numerous invitations of lectures from all over Pakistan. He is such a kind person that he could not say no to the people but as a result he was not finding enough time to complete his literary projects. During this time his health got deteriorated and needed regular treatment from abroad. Considering these facts he finally decided to move to Canada and settle there to undergo his treatment and concentrate on his literary works.

Now the point is to see what he achieved during his stay. Here is the summary of some of his main achievements during his stay out of Pakistan:

• Completed renowned Qur’an translation titled ‘Irfan-ul-Qur’an’ that has alhamdolillah become one of the highest circulated Qur’an translation of today.
• Completed 30-volumed Hadiths compilation containing collection of several thousand Hadiths and Sharh of Hadiths addressing modern day issues (this book is still under the process of being finalized for printing).
• Started working on Tafseer and this work is still being done by him.
• Completed World renowned book “Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombing” that clarified many misconceptions about Islam and that book became one of the most popular books defending Islam’s stance on terrorism.
• Travelled around the World (USA, Canada, Australia, UK, Europe, India, Egypt, Turkey) and delivered lectures highlighting Islam’s message of ‘peace’ at high profile Universities and Forums as well as at Parliaments of the countries. He clarified Islam’s stance on extremism to Muslim and Non-Muslim audience. Based on his contributions, Minhaj-ul-Quran was awarded special consultative status by the UNO.
• Upon the invitation of World Economic Forum (WEF), he attended DAVOS conference and delivered his message. He was the first Pakistani scholar who was ever invited by such a high profile organization.
• Organized historical ‘Peace for Humanity’ conferences in London and New York which were attended by several thousand plarticipants, both Muslims and Non-Muslims
• Historica visit to several cities of India where millions attended his lectures that promoted message of love, peace. He was the first ever Pakistani scholar who was given such a historical welcome.
• Historical visit of Egypt and lectures at Al-Azhar University.

We can very well see that all his achievements have been remarkable and may not have possible had he stayed in Pakistan. All these items during short span of living abroad show a person of full dedication and struggle with special focus to revive whole Ummah and especially Pakistani Nation. Also the organization he is leading has network in more than 90 countries. It was critically needed that he visited those networks and promote the message of Islam.

So before anyone thinks and say that any person who left Pakistan is not honest to Pakistan then think about Quaid-e-Azam who moved to UK and stayed there before his return back to India to lead Muslim Ummah towards an independent nation.

Finally, this is also per Sunnah of Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as he migrated to Medina and then returned to Makkah with full victory.

Here is an article by a renowned journalist Javed Chaudhry in which he is also addressing the same topic.

I hope people research and find out the truth instead of just start blaming someone, especially a person who is not only working for our nation but for the whole Muslim Ummah.