Quranic Arabic Instructor
VIRGINIA CHAPTER
Ustadh Omar Popal is currently a Resident Instructor of Quranic Arabic at Fawakih. At the age of 16, Omar spent one year in Durban, South Africa at Madrasah Inaa'miyyah where he completed hifdh (memorization) of 7 ajza' (parts) of Quran. Upon returning to the states in 2010, Ustadh Omar enrolled at Madinatul Uloom in Wooodbridge, VA under the guidance of Mufti Yusuf ibn Yaqoub. For 2 years, he studied the traditional Dars-e-Nizami curriculum, including basic mutun (texts) in Arabic, fiqh (jurisprudence), aqidah (theology), Usul al-Fiqh (legal theory) and Tarbiyyah (sciences of the heart).
In the summer of 2012, Ustadh Omar completed intermediate Quranic Arabic studies under the direction of Shaykh Suheil Laher during the Fawakih Summer Intensive. Later that summer, Ustadh Omar enrolled at Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim, Yemen. There he studied Shafi'i and Hanafi fiqh, aqidah, 'Ulum al-Quran, 'Ulum al-Hadith, Tajwid, and Arabic Language with teachers such as Shaykh Omar Khatib, Shaykh Ahmad Alwan, Habib Salim bin 'Umar bin Hafidh, Shaykh Hussain Ba-Khamis.
At intermittent times, Ustadh Omar has studied various topics with Shaykh Samir an-Nass, Shaykh Amienullah Abdur-Raouf and Shaykh Faisal Matadar.
After completing 2 years at Dar al-Mustafa, in 2014 Ustadh Omar returned to the states with instruction from his teachers in Yemen to teach. Since then he has taught Quranic Arabic (levels 1-5) with Fawakih in the Greater Washington DC Metro Area. In 2016 Ustadh Omar served as Fawakih's Resident Quranic Arabic and Islamic Studies Instructor in the Chicagoland area while is also pursuing advanced studies at Dar al-Qasim under Maulana Bilal Ansari and Shaykh Amin Khowaldia. After leaving Chicago, he went to Turkey to continue his studies under various scholars in that region. He is currently in the DC Metro Area with his family.