BIOGRAPHIES

Like men, women too have taken a wholehearted part in the religious and scholarly fields. Earlier books of biographies have information about noted women as they have about men. In fact, seperate books were also composed on women's contribution, and this goes on even today. Many people have written books on outstanding women.

However, these books throughout are written in Arabic, there being none in Urdu/English. Scholars of this era have paid attention to religious education of women. Therefore, the author has compiled this book, highlighting the outstanding acheivements of Muslim women in the Religious and Scholarly fields.

# Cover: Hardback
# Author: Maulana Qazi Athar Mubarakpuri
# Publisher: Darul Ishaat
# Pages: 111

This book is an adaptation of the Muqaddimah or Preface to Mohammad Akram's 40-volume biographical dictionary (in Arabic) of the Muslim women who studied and taught hadith. It demonstrates the central role women had in preserving the Prophet's teaching, which remains the master-guide to understanding the Qur'an as rules and norms for life. Within the bounds of modesty in dress and manners, women routinely attended and gave classes in the major mosques and madrasas, travelled intensively for knowledge, transmitted and critiqued hadith, issued fatwas, etc. Some of the most renowned scholars among men have depended on, and praised, the scholarship of their women teachers. The women scholars enjoyed considerable public authority in society, not exceptionally, but as the norm.

The huge body of information reviewed in al-Muhaddithat is essential to understanding the role of women in Islamic society, their past achievement and future potential. Hitherto it has been so dispersed as to be 'hidden'. Akram's dictionary will greatly facilitate further study, contextualization and analysis.

Mohammad Akram, currently a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, is an alumnus of the prestigious Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow. He has written many books on hadith, fiqh, Islamic biography, and Arabic grammar. This is his first major publication in English.

The cover shows the study journeys of Fatimah bint Sa`d al-Khayr, and a few of her principal teachers and students. Her family moved from Valencia to the western edge of China; she died in Cairo in 600 AH. (Full map and details in ch. 3.)

Cover: Paperback
Author: Dr Muhammad Akram Al-Nadwi
Publisher: Interface Publications
Pages: 336

Coming: 20/06/2011

31 true life accounts of Christian clergy, evangelist missionaries and many leading fiures who did not accept faith blindly, but boldly went in search of the truth.

The son of Shaykh al-Islam Mawlana Husayn Ahmad Madani, Maulana As'ad Madani was a courageous representative of Indian Muslims, a great leader of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, patron of Darul Uloom Deoband and thousands of madrasahs across India. His life was characterized by courage, determination, boldness in thought and action, religious knowledge, political wisom, social vision and a liberal approach in all matters. Allah blessed him with piety, knowledge, action, impeccable moral character.