Yasser Al-Habib

Sheikh Yasser al-Habib (Arabic: ياسر الحبيب; born 20 January 1979) is a Kuwaiti Shia scholar, and the head of the London-based Mahdi Servants Union, as well as Al-Muhassin mosque in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, and the writer of The Lady of Heaven. Al-Habib's work focuses on Islamic history, drawing on Shia and Sunni sources.

Al-Habib started his religious activities in Kuwait, starting off as a member of the Dawah Party, later he founded a non-profit religious organization named Khoddam Al-Mahdi Organization, and he also expressed his religious views regarding Abu Bakr and Umar, and criticized them sharply. This resulted in anger from several Sunni speakers in Kuwait, such as Othman al-Khamees, and other Arabic-speaking Sunni communities, which finally led to the arrest of al-Habib. Later, in February 2004 he was released under an annual pardon announced by the Emir of Kuwait on the occasion of the country's National Day, but his rearrest was ordered a few days later. Al-Habib fled Kuwait before he was sentenced in absentia to 10 years imprisonment, and spent months in Iraq and Iran before gaining asylum in the United Kingdom.