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All Praise to Almighty Allah, who raised the Chosen Prophet Mohammed (s.a.w.) from among us and bestowed the Holy Quran as a source of guidance for the humanity. Almighty Allah said “Al Rahman, (the Most Gracious).It is He who has taught the Quran (which is the Sign of His Greatest favor and grace). He created man and taught him the power of speech and expression with intelligence. The essence of understanding and expression is a great boon which is granted by Almighty Allah to his favorite servants. Holy prophet (s.a.w.) said: “When Almighty Allah desires good favor to any of His servant, He grants him understanding of the
Faith.” So most fortunate are the persons who devoted their lives for study,
understanding and expression of the Faith through works and words to others.

Centuries have passed to these learned persons in their graves but they look like talking and teaching us today through their works. This is the compemdium of Great Muslim scholars who are crossing through centuries but look fresh like Khateebs today.

Muslim Ummah classified the honorable scholars into Sahaba, Tabeiin, TabaTabeiin and their followers in the coming centuries. The record runs into thousands. Many historians collected their names in various Arabic books. But any list is not complete as it is like a flowing river which is increasing day by day.

We noted many classified lists separately into English & Arabic but felt great need of an integrated and comprehensive method to record these entries systematically. Consequently we designed a format of 1435 columns and allotted one column to each year starting from 01 to 1435 AH. Then we placed every entry to its particular year. For example Imam Bukhari is placed in the column 194AH and Ibn Khaldun in 780AH. This system also provided ample space for all new entries to come.

We selected a field of non political person devoted to Islamic studies. We define term Muslim scholar as:

“A faithful Muslim, who attained a level of appreciation in literary or scientific field and contributed to the advancement of knowledge for the benefit of the Muslim Ummah and the humanity at large”. Muslims rulers, warrior and politician are not included in this record as there are many books available for them. Any person having opinion or ideas, contrary to Islam, is excluded from this record.

We started from Sahaba but as there are books like Al Isaba fi Tameez al sahaba covering 12,000 biographies, we recorded only selected ones who were mentioned in history. Besides the scholars of Islamic subjects like Hadith, Al Quran and Fiqh, we also recorded reputed Muslim scientists, historians, poets, economist, inventors, architect and medical practitioners who gained good name in history. Thus this record includes:

*Muslim religious scholars from the Arab world.

*Muslim scholars from Andalus.

*Muslim scholars from Indo-Pak sub-continent.

*Muslim scholars from Turkey and Central Asia.

*Famous poets of Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Urdu languages.

*Muslims scholars of our times, from Europe, US, Canada, Japan & S. Africa.

* Muslim scholars from such distant lands as Timbuktu, Malaya and Qazan.

Our collection runs into more than 4500 entries where we recorded date of birth, death and merit of each scholar. Besides scholars we also mentioned certain important events which had an impact on scholarship. The Collection covers over 1000 pages, as the main body including the Chronological Index and Alphabetical list.

We pray Almighty Allah to accept our humble endeavor. Ameen

Abu Tariq Hijazi.

Saturday, the 12th Rabi Awwal,1436. (Jan 3,2015)
Harem Sharief Makkah Mukarramah

NOTE: The CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX of 196 pages in Hijrah dates has been posted on site (http://www.AbuTariqHijazi.com).