[2] A direct descendant (Sayyid) of Muhammad, Soharwardy studied Islam at Dar-ul-Aloom Soharwardia, a traditional Islamic madrasah (school) founded by his father Allama Syed Riazuddin Soharwardy, the imam of the Jamia Baghdadi Masjid in Karachi, Pakistan.
He is the head of the first Dar-ul-Aloom in Calgary, where he teaches Islamic studies and he delivers lectures to Muslim congregations across Canada.
"[6] In February 2012, in response to the [Shafia family murders], Soharwardy issued a fatwa against honor killings stating: "Within the Muslim community, there are a few clergy people — it’s a very small number, no doubt about it — who misinterpret the Qur’an and say it is OK to beat a wife.
That kind of mentality has to be changed, and has to be confronted.”[7] In August 2014, after publicly noting that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is actively recruiting in Canada and calling on Canadian and western authorities to intensify the fight against jihadist movements, Soharwardy received death threats from ISIL supporters.
"[10] He went on to call them Khawarij, a derogatory Arabic word for “outsiders” that refers to a violent, heretical spinoff of Islam that emerged shortly after the religion’s 7th-century founding.