Ebrahim Desai (16 January 1963 – 15 July 2021) was a South African Muslim scholar and jurist who established the Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah, the Askimamfatawa portal and served as the senior professor of hadith at Madrasah In'aamiyyah. He was an alumnus of Jamiah Islamiah Talimuddin Dabhel and ranked among The 500 Most Influential Muslims. He authored books including Commentary on Qaseedah Burdah, Introduction to Hadīth and Introduction to Islamic Commerce.
Desai taught at the Madrasah Ta῾līmuddīn, in Isipingo Beach for ten years, and headed the Fatwa department of the Jamiatul Ulama Kwazulu Natal.[5][6] He served as the senior professor of hadith at the Madrasah In'aamiyyah for another ten years, and headed its Darul Ifta.[5][6] In March 2008, he travelled to Hong Kong to lecture students at the Islamic Kasim Tuet Memorial College.[7] In 2011, he shifted to Durban and established the Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah in Sherwood.[5] He taught Sahih Bukhari at Darul Uloom Nu'maniyyah and headed the Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah, that he established in Sherwood.[8] In 2000, he started the Ask Imam Fatawa Portal, an online Islamic questions and answers database, which is thought to have given him an international prominence.[9][10] According to V. Šisler, "Ebrahim Desai exemplifies a scholar who, although being trained in non-Azhari institution outside of the Arab world, gained global recognition mainly through mass support accumulated via information and communication technology."[9]
Desai served as the chairman of FNB Islamic Finance's Shari’ah Board.[11] He started the Sharī῾ah Compliant Business Campaign in 2002 to provide "a conference to tackle contemporary business matters in Islamic Commerce and Finance", according to the website of Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah.[8] He was featured among The 500 Most Influential Muslims compiled by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.[12]Namira Nahouza referred to him as the "South African Grand Mufti of Indian descent."[13] His students include Abrar Mirza, Faisal al-Mahmudi and Husain Kadodia.[14][15] Farhana in her research study indicates that "Desai himself was arguably a master teacher to the students of Darul Ifta Mahmudiyyah, the institution where he taught and from where all his fatwas were generated. A survey of the structure of the fatwas on askimam.org in 2011 revealed that while Desai's students hail from different geographical locations, they generate the bulk of fatwas, and as master teacher he was the final authority, as indicated by the closing line at the end of each fatwa: 'checked and approved by Mufti Ebrahim Desai'."[16]
^"Biography of Mufti Husain Kadodia". Darul Iftaa Malawi. Retrieved 26 July 2021. Upon returning from Mauritania, he enrolled in the Ifta course at Madrasah In'amiyyah in Camperdown, South Africa under Mufti Ebrahim Desai. He successfully completed the Takhassus fi' al-Ifta course which culminated in his answering of approximately 1,500 fatwas.