The Prophet of Mercy: How Muhammad (PBUH) Rose Above Enmity Insult

Dr. Omar Suleiman is a Palestinian-American imam, scholar, civil rights activist, and the founding president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research — one of the most prolific Islamic research and outreach institutions in the contemporary West. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1986 to a Palestinian Muslim family with roots in Nablus, he began his Islamic studies in 2000 and pursued traditional training across the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Malaysia.

Suleiman holds bachelor's degrees in Islamic Law and Accounting, master's degrees in Islamic Finance and Political History, and a PhD in Islamic Thought and Civilization from the International Islamic University Malaysia, completed in 2020. He served as imam of the Jefferson Muslim Association in his hometown for six years before relocating to Dallas in 2013, where he became Resident Scholar of the Valley Ranch Islamic Center. In 2016 he founded the Yaqeen Institute, which produces accessible scholarship across creed, spirituality, fiqh, and contemporary social questions. He also serves as adjunct professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University and is the founding director of MUHSEN, a nonprofit advocating for Muslims with disabilities and their families.

Suleiman has been notably active in interfaith and social justice work, leading the invocation at the 2016 memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers attended by Presidents Obama and Bush, and organizing around issues including immigration, racial justice, and Palestinian rights. He has appeared in CNN, USA Today, The Guardian, HuffPost, and The Dallas Morning News, and is consistently included in the Muslim 500 list of the world's most influential Muslims.

Imam Mohammad Elshinawy is an Egyptian-American Islamic scholar, lecturer, and Senior Fellow at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, where he leads a substantial body of research and translation work on the Qur'an, the Prophetic biography, and the rational and historical foundations of Islamic faith. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, he memorized the Qur'an in his youth and pursued his formal Islamic education in Egypt, completing his Bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies in English at the Islamic American University and his Master's degree in Islamic Studies at the European Institute of Islamic Sciences. He has studied directly with a range of traditional scholars in Egypt and elsewhere, with particular attention to tafsir, hadith, and the classical sciences of creed.

At Yaqeen, Elshinawy has authored and co-authored major research publications including the multi-part Why Should I Believe in Muhammad ﷺ? series, Why Should I Believe in the Quran? series, and shorter papers on the historicity of the Qur'an, Prophetic miracles, and answers to contemporary skeptical objections. He also serves as a translator and editor on the Yaqeen tafsir project. His video and podcast output — including the Qur'an 30 for 30 Ramadan series, regular YouTube lectures, and weekly Friday sermons — has placed him among the most listened-to English-speaking Islamic teachers of his generation.

Elshinawy's distinctive contribution is bringing the resources of traditional Islamic scholarship into direct engagement with contemporary doubt, atheism, and Orientalist critique — translating high-level rational and historical apologetics into language accessible to ordinary readers and viewers. He continues to teach, lecture, and publish from his base in the United States.