Muhammad Taqi Usmani (born 5 October 1943) is a Pakistani Islamic scholar and former judge who is the current president of the Wifaq ul Madaris Al-Arabia and the vice president and Hadith professor of the Darul Uloom Karachi. An intellectual leader of the Deobandi movement, he has authored 143 books in Urdu, Arabic and English, including a translation of the Qur'an in both English and Urdu as well a 6-volume commentary on the Sahih Muslim in Arabic, Takmilat Fath al-Mulhim and Uloomu-l-Quran. He has written and lectured extensively on hadith, and Islamic finance. He chairs the Shariah Board of the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). He is also a permanent member of the Jeddah-based International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organ of the OIC. In Pakistan, Usmani served as a scholar judge on the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court from 1982 to 2002, and on the Federal Shariat Court from 1981 to 1982. From 1977 to 1981 he was a member of Zia's Council of Islamic Ideology and was involved in drafting the Hudood Ordinances. Early life and education Muhammad Taqi Usmani was born on 5 Shawwal 1362 AH (3 October 1943) in the city of Deoband in Saharanpur district, United Provinces, British India. He was the fifth and youngest son of Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1897–1976). With his full nasab (patronymic), he is Muhammad Taqi ibn Muhammad Shafi ibn Muhammad Yasin ibn Khalifah Tahsin Ali ibn Imam Ali ibn Karim Allah ibn Khair Allah ibn Shukr Allah. The forefathers of Miyanji Shukr Allah are unknown, but the family claims descent from Uthman, the third caliph and a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, hence the nisbat "Usmani". Usmani was born to several generations of educators. The title "Miyanji" applied to several of his ancestors indicates that they were teachers. His grandfather Muhammad Yasin (1865/661936) taught Persian at Darul Uloom Deoband. Born the year before the madrasah's founding, he had been one of its first students and studied with some of its early teachers including Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi, Sayyid Ahmad Dihlawi, Mulla Mahmud Deobandi, and Mahmud al-Hasan Deobandi. Usmani's father Muhammad Shafi was also a product of the Deoband seminary. He taught there for several decades and held the post of chief mufti. In 1948, when Usmani was four years old, his father immigrated the family from Deoband to Karachi, Pakistan. Since there was not