Mohammad Akram Nadwi


Mohammad Akram Nadwi is an Islamic scholar and the Dean of Cambridge Islamic College, Principal of , and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education.

Education

Nadwi was educated in one of the most famous madrasa and Islamic universities, Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulema, Lucknow, India and then in Saudi Arabia and Britain.

Writing and views

He has written over 30 books in Arabic in the fields of hadith, fiqh, Islamic biography, and Arabic grammar and syntax. Most recently he has completed a 53-volume biographical dictionary of the muhaddithat, the female scholars of hadith. Expecting to find a handful, after eight years he had discovered more than 8000, from as long ago as Umm al-Darda, the wife of one of the companions of the Prophet.
Nadwi says he does not advocate unrestricted mixing between the sexes, but acknowledges that Muslim societies and families often limit the potential of their girls and women. He compares this limitation to the "live burial" practised in pre-Islamic Arabia. He attributes to the "decline of every aspect of Islam" an insecurity and weakness which leads to these restrictions on girls' education and women's rights.

Publications