Rafi Yahya Abdullah Sharif-Bey (February 28, 1940 – March 2, 2006) was a pioneer in the development of Islamic culture in the United States.
Sharif served in the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and was later a recruiter for the Army National Guard, holding the rank of Sergeant First Class.
The University of Maryland Medical Center found a matching kidney for him on June 30, 2005 and he and his wife were waiting at the hospital when Marian Sharif suffered a stroke and died.
After his conversion, he became actively involved in the Moorish Science Temple of America – the forerunner to the Nation of Islam – and then the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
He worked with mainstream Sunni Muslims—members of his local Naqshbandi tariqah attended his janazah – and was a lifelong student of Sufism, spending time as a member of the Chisti and Nimatullahi Sufi orders as well.
In the last few years before his death, he was investigating the historical links that he believed to exist between the Lithuanian Karaite Jews from which he was descended and Islamic culture.