Abdul Bari Al-Thubaiti

Abdul Bari Al-Thubaiti (born 1960 in Mecca) is a Saudi imam and reciter: guest imam for the Tarawih prayers at Masjid al-Haram from 1990 to 1993, and imam and khatib of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina since 1994, with a doctorate in fiqh from the Islamic University of Madinah. ¹²

He was born in Mecca in 1960 (1380 AH), schooled there and memorised the Qur'an young; he took his bachelor's and master's degrees at King Abdulaziz University and a doctorate in fiqh at the Islamic University of Madinah in 2001, and recorded the complete Qur'an for Saudi radio as early as 1978. As a boy he taught memorisation in Mecca's mosques and later supervised Qur'an circles in Jeddah. ²¹

He led Tarawih at Masjid al-Haram for four Ramadan seasons from 1990, and in 1994 was appointed imam and khatib of the Prophet's Mosque. ¹²

From 2008–09 illness — the Arabic article reports a vocal-cord condition; the English article reports thyroid cancer — stopped his leading of the audible prayers, and after brief returns (Asr only in 2011, then Fajr in 2012) his public imamate remained limited, though he continued to deliver occasional sermons. ²¹