Fitnah – The Concept of Discord and Conflict Among Muslims

Dr. Muhammad Ahmad Ismail al-Muqaddim is an Egyptian Salafi scholar, preacher, and one of the founding figures of the Alexandrian Salafi da'wah, beginning in the early 1970s. Born in Alexandria in 1371 AH / 1952 CE into a religious household, he memorized the Qur'an in his youth and pursued a dual education in medicine and Islamic studies — completing his bachelor's degree in medicine from Alexandria University in 1975 alongside intensive informal Islamic studies, and later earning master's and PhD degrees in Islamic creed (al-'aqida) from the Islamic University of Madinah and the Imam Muhammad ibn Sa'ud Islamic University in Riyadh.

Al-Muqaddim has authored more than thirty books, primarily through Dar al-'Aqida and Dar al-Iman in Alexandria, addressing creed, jurisprudence, and the principles of Salafi scholarship. His best-known works include Adillat Tahrim Halq al-Lihya ('Proofs of the Prohibition of Shaving the Beard'), Adillat Hijab al-Mar'ah al-Muslima ('Proofs of the Hijab of the Muslim Woman'), Hijab al-Mar'ah al-Muslima Bayna Khurq al-'Aqida wa Khurq al-Adilla, and Fiqh Ashrat al-Sa'a ('Fiqh of the Signs of the Hour'). His pulpit lectures and recorded courses on creed and fiqh have circulated extensively in the Egyptian and broader Arabic Salafi study circles.

Al-Muqaddim continues to teach and lecture in Alexandria. His writing is characterized by extensive citation of classical Salafi authorities, careful detailed argumentation, and a methodological adherence to the approach of the salaf as he understands it — features that have made his work particularly influential among Salafi students and circles in Egypt and beyond.