A giant among giants, Imam Abu Haneefa towers high among the savants who have graced Islamic history. He was like a huge mirror vaulting from horizon to horizon, reflecting the Light of the Prophet. These reflections empowered generation after generation to see the Light and bask in its warmth. A great majority of the 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today (circa 2010 CE) follow the School of...

The Battle of Plassey Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD “It is not too much to say that the destiny of Europe hinged upon the conquest of Bengal, wrote the historian Brook Adams in 1896. People who look at today’s impoverished Bangladesh cannot imagine that in the mid-18th century, it was the hub of the most prosperous region inAsia. The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj...

There are brief moments in history when nature lifts its veil to the human intellect so that it may witness the majesty of divine creation and pass on the wisdom gained from this encounter to succeeding generations. One such intellect was that of Al Kindi. Abu Yusuf Yaqub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, one of the most celebrated of the philosophers and natural scientists of the classical age of Islam,...

History is infinitely elastic. The actions of one person in any age cause ripples that affect the lives of thousands who live downstream. Mahmud of Ghazna is important in Islamic history because his actions set the tone for the interaction between the world of Islam and the world of the Hindus. The tone of that interaction created a bitterness that has been exploited by extremists in the...