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• King Faisal Prize 1979 Prize Awards and competitions Saudi Arabia

  An annual prize of the King Faisal Foundation in Riyadh, awarded since 1979 in five categories: Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language and Literature, Medicine and Science; it consists of a certificate, a gold medal and SAR 750,000.

• Al-Mustafa International University 1979 University Learning and knowledge

  Al-Mustafa International University.

• Bahrain Islamic Bank 1979 Company Enterprise, brands and finance Bahrain

  A commercial bank in Manama, founded on 7 March 1979 and operating from 2 Muharram 1400, 22 November 1979; it is the first Islamic bank in Bahrain, supervised by the Central Bank of Bahrain and listed on the Bahrain Bourse.

• Rasasi 1979 Brand Enterprise, brands and finance

  Rasasi.

• Abul A'la Maududi 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani scholar and thinker (1903–1979), born in Aurangabad, India. He founded Jamaat-e-Islami in 1941 and led its Pakistani party until 1972, arguing for an Islamic state ordered by God's sovereignty and the sharia; he was repeatedly jailed, sentenced to death in 1953 and released under public pressure. He wrote dozens of books, headed by his Qur'an commentary Tafhim-ul-Quran, died in the United States and was buried in Lahore.

• Alam Lohar 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani Punjabi folk singer (1928–1979) from Achh village in Gujrat district, born into a blacksmith family; he created and popularised the Jugni narrative form, made Waris Shah's Heer famous in his high-pitched chimta-accompanied style, dominated folk singing in Pakistan from the 1950s until his death in a road accident, and received the Pride of Performance (1979). He was the father of Arif Lohar.

• Amr Shabana 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian former professional squash player, born in Cairo in 1979. He won the World Open four times (2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009) — the first Egyptian to win the title and, in April 2006, the first Egyptian to reach world No. 1 — and retired in August 2015.

• Ayman Mohyeldin 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian-American journalist and anchor, born in Cairo in 1979. He began at NBC, produced for CNN in Iraq, and reported for Al Jazeera English on the 2008–2009 Gaza war and the Arab Spring before returning to NBC News; he went on to anchor Ayman Mohyeldin Reports and Ayman on MSNBC, now MS NOW.

• Badr Jafar 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Badr Jafar (born 9 August 1979) is an Emirati businessman from Sharjah, chief executive officer of Crescent Enterprises and president of Crescent Petroleum. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he founded the Pearl Initiative for corporate governance in 2010, served as the COP28 Special Representative for Business and Philanthropy, and was appointed the UAE's Special Envoy for Business and Philanthropy in 2024.

• Dina Nayeri 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Iranian-American novelist, essayist and memoirist, born in Isfahan in 1979. She left Iran as a child in 1988 after her mother converted to Christianity, lived as a refugee in Dubai and Italy, and settled in Oklahoma; her books include the novels A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea and Refuge and the memoir The Ungrateful Refugee (2019).

• Eric Abidal 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  French retired footballer, born in Saint-Genis-Laval, France in 1979. A left-back and centre-back who played mainly for Lyon and Barcelona, winning 19 trophies with the two clubs, including two Champions Leagues with Barcelona, and winning 67 caps for France. His later career was marked by a liver tumour and a transplant. Raised in a Catholic family, he converted to Islam in his twenties.

• Faiz Syed 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Indian preacher and lecturer from Aurangabad, founder of the Islamic Research Centre Education & Welfare Trust (IRC) in 2001 and director of IRC TV; his YouTube channel counted 4.17 million subscribers in November 2026 per vidIQ, and his official website credits him with more than 2,000 lectures in Urdu and Hindi in more than 200 Indian cities.

• Fawad Ahmed 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Australian former cricketer, a right-arm leg-spin bowler born in Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. He left Pakistan in 2010 and sought asylum in Australia, saying he had been persecuted by religious extremists for playing and coaching cricket; he was granted permanent residency in November 2012 and Australian citizenship in July 2013, and played three One Day Internationals and two Twenty20 Internationals for Australia in August and September 2013 — one of only two Pakistan-born cricketers to represent Australia. The sources describe him as a devout Muslim who had a beer sponsor's logo removed from his shirt in 2013. In the 2014–15 Sheffield Shield final he took 8 for 89, the best bowling figures in a Shield final.

• Feryal Clark 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  British Labour Party politician, born in Malatya, Turkey, in 1979 to Kurdish parents, who moved to London at the age of eight. She studied at the University of Exeter and worked in the NHS, served as a Hackney councillor and deputy mayor of Hackney, was elected MP for Enfield North in 2019 as Labour's first Kurdish MP, and served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government (2024–2025).

• Firanda Andirja 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Indonesian scholar and preacher, born in Surabaya on 28 October 1979. He studied at the Islamic University of Madinah through a doctorate in aqidah (2016), delivered the Indonesian-language studies at the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah from 2012 to 2018 on a Saudi government appointment, is a regular voice of Radio Rodja and Rodja TV, and has written dozens of books on creed, jurisprudence and Qur'an commentary; his official YouTube channel has about 853,000 subscribers.

• Fuat Sezgin 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Turkish historian of Arab-Islamic science whose seventeen-volume Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums carried Brockelmann's history of Arabic literature forward. Born at Bitlis in 1924 and trained at Istanbul University under Hellmut Ritter, he was dismissed after the 1960 coup and moved to Frankfurt, where he founded the Institute for the History of the Arab-Islamic Sciences (1982) and its museum of scientific instruments; a sister museum opened in Istanbul in 2008. He died in Istanbul in 2018.

• Hafizullah Amin 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Afghan communist politician, born at Paghman in 1929 and educated at Kabul and Columbia University. The PDPA's second man after the Saur Revolution, he overthrew Nur Muhammad Taraki in September 1979 and headed the state for about a hundred days, until Soviet forces assassinated him at the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul on 27 December 1979 at the opening of their intervention.

• Halimah Alaydrus 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Indonesian preacher and writer, born in Indramayu in 1979. She studied in Indonesian pesantren and then at Daruz Zahro in Tarim, Hadhramaut, teaches in women's study assemblies in Jakarta and beyond, and is known for never showing her face on camera and for her books on character and the Prophet's biography.

• Hidayet Türkoğlu 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Turkish basketball executive and former player (born 1979 at Istanbul), the first Turkish-born player in NBA history; he played fifteen NBA seasons, won the 2007–08 Most Improved Player award, and has presided over the Turkish Basketball Federation since October 2016.

• Jahanara Shahnawaz 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani politician and activist of Lahore (1896–1979), the daughter of Sir Muhammad Shafi; among the first women in the Punjab Legislative Assembly (1937) and the first woman in Asia to preside over a legislative session. She founded the Punjab Provincial Women's Muslim League (1935), was a founding member and vice-president of the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA), and led the 1948 protest that restored a women's economic-opportunities bill to the agenda; she wrote the novel Husn Ara Begum and her memoirs, Father and Daughter.

• Jawed Karim 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Jawed Karim (born 28 October 1979) is a German and American software engineer and internet entrepreneur of Bangladeshi descent, a co-founder of YouTube in 2005 and the first person to upload a video to it ('Me at the zoo'). Born in Merseburg, East Germany, to a Bangladeshi father and a German mother, he worked at PayPal before YouTube, where he designed core components including its real-time anti-fraud system.

• Karam Gaber 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian Greco-Roman wrestler, born in Alexandria in 1979. He won gold in the 96 kg event at the Athens 2004 Olympics — Egypt's first Olympic gold medal since 1948 — and silver at London 2012, and carried Egypt's flag at Beijing 2008.

• Mehdi Hasan 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  British-American broadcaster, journalist and author, born in Swindon in 1979 to Indian immigrant parents. A former New Statesman and HuffPost UK politics editor and an Al Jazeera English presenter (Head to Head, UpFront), he hosted The Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC until its cancellation in 2023, wrote Win Every Argument (2023), and in 2024 founded the media company Zeteo and joined The Guardian as a columnist.

• Mehmet Okur 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Turkish former basketball player and coach (born 1979 at Yalova), the first Turkish player to win an NBA championship (with the Detroit Pistons in 2004); he played seven seasons for the Utah Jazz and in 2016 became the first Turkish citizen to coach in the NBA.

• Mir Ahmad Yar Khan 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  The last Khan of Kalat (1902–1979): he succeeded his father Azam Jan in 1933, held out through 1947 before signing Kalat's accession to Pakistan on 27 March 1948, headed the Baluchistan States Union from 1952 until its dissolution ended the khanate on 14 October 1955, was arrested in 1958 after briefly declaring himself Khan again, served as Governor of Balochistan in 1974–1977, and wrote a political autobiography, Inside Baluchistan (1975).

• Mohamed Salah Ben Mrad 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Draft card for Mohamed Salah Ben Mrad, the Hanafi shaykh al-Islam of Tunisia; his entry is not yet checked on the page.

• Muhammad Munir 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Muhammad Munir (1895–1979) was a Pakistani judge, the second Chief Justice of Pakistan (1954–1960), whose judgment in the Tamizuddin Khan case founded the doctrine of necessity; he later wrote From Jinnah to Zia.

• Muhammadullah Khalili Qasmi 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Draft card for Muhammadullah Khalili Qasmi, the Deobandi researcher and translator; his entry is not yet checked on the page.

• Nicolas Anelka 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  French retired footballer and manager, born in Le Chesnay, France in 1979. A forward who began at Paris Saint-Germain and rose with Arsenal (the 1998 league and cup double) and Real Madrid, he played for Manchester City, Fenerbahçe, Chelsea — where he won the 2009 Premier League Golden Boot — and other clubs, and won 69 caps for France. He converted to Islam in 2004 in the United Arab Emirates, taking the name Abdul-Salam Bilal.

• Nur Muhammad Taraki 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Afghan communist politician, writer and journalist, born in 1917 at Nawa in Ghazni Province to a Pashtun peasant family. He founded the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan in 1965 and was its general secretary, and headed the state after the April 1978 Saur Revolution until Hafizullah Amin overthrew him in September 1979; he was murdered at Kabul that October.

• Nurlan Baizhigitov 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  A Kazakhstani imam and preacher (born 1979 in the Zhambyl region), chief imam of Astana's Yryskeldi Kazhy Mosque since May 2023 and popularly known as the 'TikTok Imam'; his Instagram account counted 927 thousand followers in a peer-reviewed study (January 2025), and he is known for sermons on women's rights and for his invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

• Sami Said 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Eritrean-born Swedish writer and novelist, born in Keren in 1979. His family fled the war in his childhood via Sudan and Germany to Gothenburg, he studied at Linköping University, and his novels drawing on the immigrant experience have won wide critical acclaim: Väldigt sällan fin (2012, Katapult Prize), Monomani (2013), Människan är den vackraste staden (2018, August Prize shortlist and Sweden's nominee for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize), and Satansviskningar (2023).

• Tawakkol Karman 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Yemeni journalist, politician and human rights activist, born in Taiz Governorate in 1979. She co-founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005 and led weekly protests in Sana'a from 2007, then became the international face of Yemen's 2011 uprising. She received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee — the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize — and has lived in Istanbul since the Houthi takeover of Sana'a.

• Yasemin Dalkılıç 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Turkish freediver, born in Ankara in 1979. She broke eight world records in freediving, including a 120 m no-limits dive in 2000 and the first official world record in the constant-weight no-fins discipline, 40 m, in 2001.

• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 1979 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani barrister and statesman (1928–1979), founder of the Pakistan People's Party, who served as president of Pakistan (1971–1973) and then as prime minister (1973–1977) under the 1973 constitution. He was deposed in General Zia-ul-Haq's 1977 coup, tried for authorising the murder of a political opponent and executed in 1979 — a trial Pakistan's Supreme Court later declared unfair.

• Waris 1979 Series Series and programmes Pakistan

  The classic 1979 PTV serial on feudal power and inheritance in rural Punjab — one of Pakistan's most-watched dramas.

• Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) 1978 Book Books and publishers

  A study of the Prophet's biography by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri that took first place among 171 entries in the Muslim World League's sira competition, whose results were announced in Shaban 1398 AH and whose prizes were handed over in Mecca in 1399 AH (1979); it opens with Arabia before Islam and follows the life in chronological order to the Prophet's death, and was translated into English as The Sealed Nectar and into other languages.

• Muslim World League Sira Competition 1976 Competition prize Awards and competitions Saudi Arabia

  A worldwide competition for writing the Prophet's biography, announced by the Muslim World League at a conference in Pakistan in 1396 AH, with results announced in Shaban 1398 AH and prizes handed over at the League's conference in Mecca in 1399 AH (1979); 171 studies were entered, and al-Raheeq al-Makhtum took first place.