Muzaffar Iqbal
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This page is about the scholar Muzaffar Iqbal. For other people named Iqbal, see Iqbal
Muzaffar Iqbal, (Urdu:مظفر اقبال), is the founding president of the Center for Islam and Science (Canada), (http://www.cis-ca.org), and a leading Islamic scholar. He is the author of two novels, Ikhila, and Inqta, and many other scholarly books and articles.
A scientist by training and a writer by vocation, Iqbal is one of the most respected contemporary scholars focusing on the areas of Islam and science as well as Islam and the West. He has delivered lectures at numerous international conferences, seminars, and universities.
Iqbal’s various articles and books cover subjects such as religion, spirituality, mysticism science, literature, and civilizational dialogues.
Iqbal is an outspoken advocate of intelligent design and is a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design.
[edit] Biography
Iqbal was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1954. He graduated from the University of the Punjab, Lahore in 1976. He obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1983 and thereafter left the field of experimental chemistry (except for a short return) to pursue his interests in literature, history, philosophy and religion. He taught Urdu at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984), worked at the Montreal Neurological Institute of the McGill University for a brief six months (1986-7), before saying goodbye to chemistry forever.
In 1990, he moved back to Pakistan where he first worked at the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH) and then at the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. At COMSTECH, he developed programs for scientific and technical cooperation among Muslim states and traveled extensively to many parts of the Muslim world. He was also the editor of Islamic Thought and Scientific Creativity—an international refereed journal in the field of Islam and science. His stay in Pakistan was cut short when his efforts fundamentally reform COMSTECH failed; he resigned and returned to Canada in 1999.
Upon his return to his adopted homeland, Iqbal established the Center for Islam and Science (http://www.cis-ca.org) in 1999. In 2003, the Center started an international journal of Islamic perspectives on science, Islam and Science (http://www.cis-ca.org/journal), with Dr. Iqbal being its founder-editor.
[edit] Works
Iqbal is the author of fifteen books and over one hundred articles on Islamic science, religion, Islam and the West, mysticism, and history. They include:
- From the War of Independence to Independence (in Urdu, 1976)
- Abdullah Hussein: from Sad Generations to a Lonely Tiger (1984)
- Inkhila, Book I of a trilogy (Hijratain) (in Urdu, 1987)
- Health and Medical Profile of the Muslim World (ed.) 1993.
- Inqta, Book II of a trilogy (Hijratain) (in Urdu, 1994)
- Mineral Profile of the Muslim World (ed.) 1995
- Possible Strategy for Energy Mixes in the Muslim World (co-ed.) 1995
- Science in Islamic Polity in the Twenty-first Century (ed.) 1995.
- Islam and Science (Ashgate, 2002)
- God, Life and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives (co-ed., Ashgate, 2002).
- Tafhim al-Qur’an (Vol VII, Co-Trans), Islamic Foundation, 2001).
- Science and Islam (Greenwood Press, 2007).
