Hamza Yusuf

Hamza Yusuf, born Mark Hanson in 1958 in Walla Walla, Washington, converted to Islam at 19 after a near-death experience. He studied under Scottish convert Abdalqadir as-Sufi in Norwich before pursuing formal Islamic studies at the United Arab Emirates University's Islamic Studies Institute from 1979 to 1983, becoming fluent in Arabic and trained in Maliki jurisprudence and Islamic theology. In Mauritania he developed his most formative relationship with the scholar Murabit al-Hajj.

In 1996 he co-founded Zaytuna Institute in Berkeley, California with Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian, which became Zaytuna College in 2010, the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the United States. He has authored or edited more than twenty works, including Purification of the Heart and Walk on Water: The Wisdom of Jesus from Traditional Islamic Sources, and continues to teach, write and serve as an advisor at Zaytuna College.