Tareq Al-Suwaidan

Tareq Mohammed Al-Suwaidan (Arabic: طارق محمد السويدان‎; born November 15, 1953) is a Kuwaiti leader of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood. He is well known in the Middle East and in Muslim communities throughout the world for his management/strategic planning training, motivational speaking and television shows and appearances. According to Forbes magazine (Arabic edition: Forbes Arabia), Al-Suwaidan ranks second in annual net income among Islamic speakers in the Muslim world with an estimated net profit of $1 million in 2007. Al-Suwaidan was trained in the classical Islamic sciences in his youth and lived and studied in the United States from the age of 17 and remained for 20 years, graduating from high school, and receiving a B.S. in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Penn State University in 1975 and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in 1990 in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa.

Al-Suwaiden has preached to large audiences in the U.K. Canada, and Australia. He has spoken to Western audiences at venues such as Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He frequently supports Western and American Muslim organizations. While Al-Suwaidan's speeches and remarks in English are often moderate, in Arabic he espouses extremist ideas.