14 CENTURIES OF GLORIOUS LEGACY: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF 1400 OUTSTANDING MUSLIMS WHO ENRICHED HUMANITY

The contribution of Islam to the enrichment of human civilization covers wide spectrum of fields, including science and medicine, technology and engineering, art and architecture, society and culture, language and literature, law and jurisprudence, statecraft and administration, and urbanization. The seminal and wide-ranging contributions of Islamic civilization to these areas have been widely recognized and documented by the historians and other specialists.

However, much of the information in this field remains unknown to the general public. There is a great urgent need, in the contemporary global context, to disseminate authentic information about Islamic civilization‟s monumental contribution to humanity to larger audiences around the world. The need has become all the more pressing in the context of present times, when a great deal of misunderstanding, large parts of the world, when Islamic values and principles are perceived as antithetical to modernity and progress and as the breeding ground of obscurantism, intolerance and violence and when Muslims are increasingly seen as fanatical, backward-looking and a threat to global peace and prosperity.

This project was undertaken by IOS, with objectives to project and highlight the seminal, monumental and wide-ranging contributions of Islamic civilization, drawn from authentic and credible sources, in a cogent, lucid style in terms of the current academic idiom and vocabulary; to dispel ignorance, misunderstanding and misrepresentation about Islamic values and principles, Islamic civilization and Muslims; to present, with the afore-mentioned objectives in mind, context-sensitive and interpretive biographical sketches of 1400 highly distinguished Muslims from around the world, from the inception of Islam to till date, highlighting their contributions to the enrichment of human civilization in general and to their societies in particular.