Muhammad Yusuf Kandhlawi was born to a family of scholars in 1917 and was exposed to an environment of piety at a young age. He memorized the Quran at the age of ten and continued to study Hadith and the Islamic sciences. He had a deep connection with the scholars of the time and was recognized as one of the great Sufi scholars. After his father, Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi, died in 1944, he was appointed the 2nd Ameer of Tablighi Jamaat by the Shura (consultative body of religious leaders). As a young boy, he completed his primary education and studied Hadith, starting with the six main authentic collections, under the supervision of his father. He then undertook a more specialized study of Hadith under the scholars of Mazahir Uloom Saharanpur, a specialized school that placed particular emphasis on the study of Hadith and trained its students in the art of Islamic advocacy. At the school, he benefited from studying under the supervision of Sheikh Muhammad Zakariya Kandhlawi, one of the top scholars of Hadith in the Muslim world in the twentieth century. He graduated at the age of 20, in 1936 (1355 AH). Muhammad Yusuf memorized the Quran at the age of ten, from Hafiz Imam Khan Mewati. Syed Ahmad Faizabad, the elder brother of Syed Husain Ahmad Madani, sent an honorary degree to Yusuf commemorating his memorization of the Quran.