Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (born 19 February 1951) is a Pakistani–Canadian Islamic scholar and former politician. He is the founder and chief patron of Minhaj-ul-Quran International (MQI) since 1980. He also founded the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and served as its leader from 1989 to 2019.
Born in Jhang, West Punjab, Qadri studied classical Islamic sciences under numerous Islamic scholars throughout the Muslim world, gaining more than 500 ijazas and isnads in various fields of Islamic knowledge. After graduating from University of the Punjab, he served as a professor of international constitutional law at the university. Hix expertise in Islamic jurisprudence led him to being appointed as a jurist consult on sharia law for the Supreme Court and the Federal Shariat Court. Qadri laid foundation to Minhaj-ul-Quran International in 1980, Minhaj University Lahore in 1986 and Minhaj Welfare Foundation in 1989. In the same year, he also founded the Pakistan Awami Tehreek political party and successfully contested the 1990 Pakistani general election, serving as Member of the National Assembly until 2004 when he resigned in protest against President Pervez Musharraf's policies. After conflicts with "the Establishment", Qadri relocated to Canada in 2005 and began refocusing on religion.
Qadri returned to Pakistan in 2012 and led the Long March against Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in January 2013. In the aftermath of the Model Town incident in June 2014, Qadri spearheaded the Inqilab March against Gilani's successor Nawaz Sharif. In 2019, he announced his retirement from politics due to health issues and profound academic commitments. Since then, he has continued to give religious lectures in Canada.
A highly prolific writer, Qadri has authored more than 1,000 books in Urdu, Arabic and English. He has delivered over 6,000 lectures and has been featured in every edition of The 500 Most Influential Muslims since its first edition in 2009. In 2012, he was one of the reported nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to extremism and promotion of inter-faith dialogue.
Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri was born on 19 February 1951 in Jhang, a city in Punjab, Pakistan, into a Punjabi Muslim family with a strong scholarly and spiritual heritage. His father, Dr. Farid-ud-Din Qadri, was a respected physician, Sufi poet, and religious scholar who emphasized both secular and Islamic education for his son.
Qadri’s early education blended religious and secular instruction. He attended the Sacred Heart School, a Catholic mission school in Jhang, where he learned English and gained exposure to Christianity.
Concurrently, he began formal Islamic studies under his father at age 10, focusing on classical texts and Sufi practices. At 12, he traveled to Medina, Saudi Arabia, to enroll at Madrasa al-‘Ulum ash-Shar‘iyya, situated in the historic residence of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. This institution provided rigorous training in Quranic exegesis (tafsir), Hadith, jurisprudence (fiqh), and Arabic language.
He also studied classical Islamic sciences under eminent scholars around the world, including in Makkah, Madinah, Syria, Baghdad, Lebanon, Morocco, India, and Pakistan, receiving around 500 authorities and chains of transmission in various branches of Islamic knowledge. He learned under Mawlana Ziauddin Madani (d. 1981, aged 107) and studied Hadith from Muhaddith al-Hijaz al-Sayyid ‘Alawi ibn ‘Abbas al-Maliki al-Makki (d. 1971). Additionally, al-Shaykh al-Sayyid ‘Alawi's son, the late muhaddith of al-Hijaz, al-Sayyid Muhammad 'Alawi al-Maliki (d. 2004), gave Qadri all of his father's ijazas and isnads in written form, which had been previously received verbally, as well as his own chains of transmission.
Higher education and academic career
Returning to Pakistan, Qadri pursued higher education at the University of the Punjab in Lahore. He earned a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 1974, followed by a Master of Arts (MA) in Islamic Studies in 1972, where he received the university’s Gold Medal for academic excellence. He later completed a PhD in Islamic Law in 1986, focusing on constitutional and jurisprudential frameworks within Islamic tradition.
During his academic tenure, Qadri became the youngest professor in the university’s history, teaching British, American, and Islamic constitutional law. He also served on the university’s Syndicate, Senate, and Academic Council, its highest governing bodies.
Legal and scholarly contributions
Before entering academia full-time, Qadri practiced law in Jhang’s district courts. His expertise in Islamic jurisprudence led to his appointment as a Jurist Consult for Pakistan’s Supreme Court and Federal Shariat Court, where he influenced landmark rulings on issues such as blasphemy laws and gender equality in blood money (diya) cases.
Influences and ideological foundations
Qadri’s intellectual development was shaped by his father’s Sufi teachings and his studies under scholars like Tahir Allauddin Al-Qadri Al-Gillani and Maulana Ziauddin Madani.
By his late 20s, Qadri had already authored significant texts on Islamic law and theology, including Islamic Penal System and its Philosophy (1986), reflecting his early engagement with contemporary legal debates.
Founding of Minhaj-ul-Quran International
Minhaj-ul-Quran International is an organization established on 17 October 1980, with branches in over a hundred countries. The organization states that its mission is to promote religious moderation, effective education, inter-faith dialogue and harmony, and a moderate interpretation of Islam, drawing on methods of Sufism. In March 2011, the United Nations Economic and Social Council granted special consultative status to Minhaj-ul-Quran International.