Yusuf Estes
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Yusuf Estes (born 1944), is a American convert to Islam. He was brought up in a Protestant Christian family; members of the Disciples of Christ. Estes was known then as "Skip Estes".
From 1962 until 1990, he had a varied career as a music minister, preacher, and the owner of Estes Piano and Organ Company. He lived in Texas and Florida.
In 1991, Estes had business dealings with an Egyptian Muslim called Muhammad. He learned about the religion firsthand and converted to Islam the same year along with his wife, father, and step mother. He has since pursued Arabic language and Quranic studies in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey.
His Islamic activities include:
- Volunteer imam in a Texas military installation.
- Chaplain for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, starting 1994.
- Delegate to the United Nations Peace Summit for Religious Leaders in August of 2000.
- University guest speaker.
- Television preacher, syndicated television programs on satellite and cable networks.
- Maintaining Islamic websites
[edit] Criticism
He claims to present a non-sectarian approach to living as a Muslim, relying only on the Qur'an and Sunnah. However he has criticized Sufi and Shi'a Muslims and compared them with non-Muslim groups like "Nation of Islam" and "Ahmadiyyah", while he spared Wahhabi/Salafi: "All this time, this groups such as "suffuse" And "Shiites" and "Nation of Islam" and "Ahmadiyyans" and "Rastafarians" and "Moorish Science Temple" and "Ansar Allah" and "Five Percenters" and "Submitters International" are actually doing the thing that you are complaining against me: They are dividing up the Muslims through their various cults and tareeqahs. We ask everyone to come together and unify according to what Allah has ordered us in the first place, and that is to unify under the Quran and the Sunnah." [1], [2], [3].
