Ali al-Sallabi

Dr. Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, or al-Salabi is a Muslim historian, religious scholar and Islamist politician from Libya. He was arrested by the Gaddafi regime, then left Libya and studied Islam in Saudi Arabia and Sudan during the 1990s. He then studied in Qatar under Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the international Muslim Brotherhood and returned to Libya during the 2011 overthrow of Gaddafi and distributed weapons, money and aid to Islamist groups in the country. His actions were criticized by members of the internationally recognized Libyan government under the National Transitional Council who he in turn criticized as being secular.