Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the influential scholar, cleric and longtime advocate for political Islam who saw his life’s ambition nearly realized in the 2011 uprisings against Arab dictators across the Middle East, only to see them later fall apart, died on Monday in Doha, Qatar, where he had been living in exile. He was 96.

His health had deteriorated since he contracted Covid-19 two years ago, and he died at a hospital in his adopted country, his son Abdel-Rahman al-Qaradawi said.

Born in Egypt, where his active role in the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization viewed as a threat by Egyptian rulers, repeatedly landed him in jail, he fled to Qatar. Years later, his sermons on Qatar’s Al Jazeera network were seen by tens of millions across the Arab world and made him one of the most influential Islamic voices of the 20th century.

Thousands of people attended his funeral in Doha on Tuesday, including the deputy emir of Qatar and other Qatari and foreign officials.