Rabīʿ bin Hādī ʿUmayr al Madkhalī () is a Saudi professor who is a former head of the Sunnah Studies Department at the Islamic University of Madinah. He is a Salafi Muslim scholar who is considered to be one of Salafism's prominent thinkers, and is known for his unrelenting criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood. His followers are often labeled by the derogatory term Madkhali. Biography Education and career Rabee Al-Madkhali began seeking knowledge in his village from Ahmad bin Muhammad Jabir Al-Madkhali and Muhammad bin Jabir Al-Madkhali after he turned eight years old. His teacher before his study at the 'Ma’had al-’Ilmi' in Samtah was Nasir Khalufah Mubaraki (one of Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al-Qar’awi’s students). After completing several classical Islamic texts with him, he started his education at the Ma’had al-’ilmi in Samtah. The most notable of his teachers were: Hafidh ibn Ahmed Ali al-Hakami, Muhammad bin Ahmad Al-Hakami, Ahmad bin Yahya Al-Najmi, Muhammad Aman Al-Jami' and Muhammad Saghir Al-Khamisi. In 1961, he entered the Faculty of Sharia at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh for two months and then switched to the Faculty of Sharia at the Islamic University of Madinah, where his teachers included former Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, Abdul-Muhsin Al-Abbad, Muhammad Amin Al-Shanqiti, Saleh Al-Iraqi and Abdul-Ghaffar Hasan Al-Hindi. He graduated four years later with excellence. After working at the University, he returned to complete his higher education. He received his master's degree after publishing his thesis, ″Between imams Muslim and Daruqutni″ and achieved his doctorate with distinction with his dissertation. After completing his Doctorate at Umm al-Qura in 1980, Madkhali returned to the Islamic University of Madinah where he taught at the Faculty of Hadith and later became the head of the Department of Sunnah in the Department of Higher Studies. He held the chair until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Having been an opponent of the House of Saud but then having turned strongly pro-establishment by the early 1990s, the Saudi government promoted al-Madkhali to lead a countermovement against growing criticisms of the Kingdom's socioeconomic ills, late deliveries of farm subsidies and normalization of ties with Israel. After the Gulf War had concluded, Madkhali distributed a booklet justifying the decision of the Saudi Arabian government to allow the presence of U.S. troops (who later withdrew) on Arabian soil and criticizing rival controversial radical cleric Safar Al-Hawali