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About
Shibli Nomani rahimahullah (1857-1914) was one of the most prominent Indian Muslim scholars of his era, distinguished for his mastery of Arabic and Persian and his prolific contributions to Islamic scholarship in the Urdu language. He was closely associated with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) and the Aligarh movement, which sought to revitalize Islamic learning and reconcile it with the demands of the modern age in colonial India. Shibli Nomani produced major biographical and historical works on figures of the early Islamic tradition, the most ambitious being his unfinished Sirat al-Numan (on Imam Abu Hanifa) and his celebrated Sirat al-Nabi, a multi-volume biography of the Prophet ﷺ which was later completed by his disciple Syed Sulaiman Nadvi. He also wrote studies on the Caliph Umar and on Imam Ghazali, and founded the Shibli Academy (Dar al-Musannifin) in Azamgarh, India, an institution dedicated to Islamic scholarship that continues to operate. His work on the Caliph Umar, published in the Oxford Makers of Islamic Civilization series, reflects his contributions to Islamic historical biography.
