Wādiʻī, Muqbil ibn Hādī

Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i (c. 1933 – 21 July 2001) was a Yemeni-born Islamic scholar. He was the founder of the Dar al-Hadith al-Khayriyya, a madrasa in the northern town of Dammaj which became one of the main centres for the Salafi ideology in the country. Born in northern Yemen to a Zaydi Shia family, al-Wadi'i converted to Sunni Islam in his young age. He travelled to Saudi Arabia where he studied Islam under renowned Salafi scholars such as Abd Allah ibn Humayd, Ibn Baz, Hammad al-Ansari, Muhammad al-Sumali, Abd al-Aziz al-Najdi and several others. In December 1979, al-Wadi'i was arrested by Saudi authorities after having been falsely accused of involvement in the seizure of the Grand Mosque by Juhayman al-Utaybi and his supporters. Upon the insistence of Ibn Baz, al-Wadi'i was released in few months and deported to Yemen where he began preaching Salafism and laid foundation to the Dar al-Hadith al-Khayriyya in 1980.