2023 - His Excellency Sheikh Nasser bin Abdullah

Sheikh Nasser bin Abdullah

by Service to Islam

Sheikh Nasser bin Abdullah Al-Zaabi completed his university education in his country, then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1972 where he was appointed as Attaché in the Ministry, then as Chargé d’ Affaires at his country’s embassy in Libya, and then Ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He participated in several meetings and conferences of foreign ministers of Islamic countries and heads of Islamic countries. He has a long track record in charitable work and religious advocacy. Since 1981 he has been Chairman of the Permanent Council of the Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISF), a subsidiary institution of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic University in Niger since 1992, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Islamic University in Uganda since 1997. He is also a member of a number of Islamic councils, entities and centers.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2023 - Professor Choi Young Kil-Hamed

Professor Choi Young Kil-Hamed

by Service to Islam

Professor Choi Young-Kil obtained a BA in Arabic Language and Literature in 1975, from Hancock University on Foreign Language Studies. In 1980 he received a university studies certificate at the College of Fundamentals of Religion and Da’wah [religious advocacy] at the Islamic University of Madinah. He also obtained a Master’s degree in 1982 in Arabic language from Hancock University for the study on foreign languages, and a PhD degree in 1986 in Islamic studies at Omdurman Islamic University. His PhD thesis was entitled “Islamic Advocacy in Korea”. Professor Choi Young-Kil worked as a teacher during his residence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for Koreans residing in the country at the Islamic Education Center. He served as Visiting Professor at Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University over 1982-1983. He held several academic positions at Myeongji University during which he headed the Department of Arab Studies and Graduate Studies at the university, then Director of Academic Affairs at the College of Arts, and then Dean of the College of Humanities. He is still practicing his work at this university, where he works as a chair professor of Islamic studies. He is also a former member of a number of councils, bodies and centers concerned with Islamic scholarship. He was honored for his efforts in promoting Islamic work and translation. He received the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Award for Translation for the year 2008, and an award for serving Islam from the Regional Council for Islamic Call in Southeast Asia for the year 2023.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor Nader Masmoudi

Professor Nader Masmoudi

by Science

Nader Masmoudi received his B.Sc. from the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand in 1994, where he came first at the Concours of Ecole Normale Supérieure and Ecole Polytechnique, and his M.Sc. from Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1996. This performance earned him the prize of the Republic of Tunisia for academic achievement. He then later received his PhD from Paris-Dauphine University in 1999 with a paper on asymptotic problems in Fluid Mechanics and his second diploma (Habilitation) from the same university on Fluid Mechanics and Gas Dynamics in 2000. Masmoudi was appointed as a researcher at the CNRS in Paris from 1998 until 2000. 

Masmoudi then was appointed as an assistant professor at New York University in 2000 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, where he later became a full professor in 2008. Focusing primarily on partial differential equations coming from physics, functional analysis, differential geometry and fluid mechanics. Currently Professor Masmoudi is a distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the New York University of Abu Dhabi and head of his Research Center on Stability, Instability and Turbulence.

Professor Masmoudi’s research has been at the forefront of Partial Differential Equations, Fluid Mechanics and Dynamical Systems for the past 20 years. He has been cited by more than 8000 papers for his works in pure and applied mathematics, and has helped discover many breakthroughs in Fluid Mechanics and especially in 2D and 3D Euler equations, the Prandtl system, which have remained unsolved since 1757. In particular he discovered that Euler’s equations do not always apply and can sometimes “blow-up” and become singular under certain conditions. This work helps to solve many problems in fluid-modeling topics ranging from airplanes and weather predictions to traffic flow and crowd management.

An author of more than 160 papers, Professor Masmoudi is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as of 2021. He has been recognized with numerous awards, grants and fellowships including the Sloan research Fellowship, the Best Scientific Paper Award in Annales de l’Institut Henri Poincaré, a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, a Chair from the Fondation Sciences mathematiques de Paris, the Fermat Prize, the Chair Schlumberger from the IHES in Paris, the SIAG/APDE Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Kuwait Prize in the field of Fundamental Science from The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, and the Kifra Prize from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. He was also a recipient of a Gold medal at the mathematical Olympiad.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor Martin Hairer

Professor Martin Hairer

by Science

Martin Hairer pursued his studies at the University of Geneva, where he received undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Physics in 1998, as well as a Ph.D. in Physics in 2001. He subsequently held positions at the University of Warwick (UK) and the Courant Institute (US), before moving to Imperial College London, where he currently holds a chair in probability and stochastic analysis. His work is in the general area of probability theory with a main focus on the analysis of stochastic partial differential equations. In particular, he recently developed the theory of regularity structures which allows to give a precise mathematical meaning to a number of such equations that were previously outside the scope of mathematical analysis. 

Author of a monograph and over 100 research articles, Professor Hairer is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was also awarded an honorary degree from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2016. His work has been distinguished with a number of prizes and awards, most notably the LMS Whitehead and Philip Leverhulme prizes in 2008, the Fermat prize in 2013, the Fröhlich prize and Fields Medal in 2014, a knighthood in 2016, and the Breakthrough prize in Mathematics in 2020. 

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor David Ruchien Liu

Professor David Ruchien Liu

by Medicine

David Liu graduated first in his class at Harvard College in 1994. During his doctoral research at UC, Berkeley, Liu initiated the first general effort to expand the genetic code in living cells. He earned his Ph.D. in 1999 and became an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University in the same year. He was promoted to an associate professor in 2003 and to a full professor in 2005. Liu became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 2005 and joined the JASONs, academic science advisors to the U.S. government, in 2009. In 2016, he became a Core Institute Member and a Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the Director of the Chemical, Biology, and Therapeutics Science Program.

Professor Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor and the director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, the vice chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His major research interests include the engineering, evolution, and in vivo delivery of genome editing proteins such as base editors to study and treat genetic diseases; the evolution of proteins with novel therapeutic potential using phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE); and the discovery of bioactive synthetic small molecules and synthetic polymers using DNA-templated organic synthesis and DNA-encoded libraries. Base editing, the first general method to perform precision gene editing without double-stranded breaks, and a Science 2017 Breakthrough of the Year finalist, as well as prime editing, PACE, and DNA-templated synthesis are four examples of technologies pioneered in his laboratory. These technologies are used by thousands of laboratories around the world and have enabled the study and potential treatment of many genetic diseases.

Liu has been elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has earned several University-wide distinctions for teaching at Harvard, including the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize, the Roslyn Abramson Award, and a Harvard College Professorship. Liu has published more than 200 papers and is the inventor on more than 75 issued U.S. patents. His research accomplishments have earned distinctions including the Ronald Breslow Award for Biomimetic Chemistry, the American Chemical Society David Perlman Award, ACS Chemical BiologyAward, the American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, the Arthur Cope Young Scholar Award, the NIH Marshall Nirenberg Lecturer, and awards from the Sloan Foundation, Beckman Foundation, NSF CAREER Program, and Searle Scholars Program. In 2016 and 2020, he was named one of the Top 20 Translational Researchers in the world by Nature Biotechnology, and was named one of Nature’s 10 researchers in the world and to the Foreign Policy Leading Global Thinkersin 2017. He is the founder or co-founder of several biotechnology and therapeutics companies, including Beam Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, Exo Therapeutics, and Chroma Medicine.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor Suzanne Stetkevych

Professor Suzanne Stetkevych

by Arabic Language and Literature

Suzanne Stetkevych holds a Ph.D. in Classical Arabic Literature, and she is the chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. Professor Stetkevych held several managerial positions including the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures chair at Indiana University; the Director of Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University; the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies chair at Georgetown University.

She has been a member of several committees, the Fulbright Selection Committee, the Patten Lecture Committee at Indiana University; the Dept. of Arabic & Islamic Studies, the Arabic Linguist Search Committee; and a member of the Editorial Board in the Journal of Arabic Literature.

Professor Stetkevych has published numerous research papers specialized in Arabic Literature Studies in English in refereed journals and periodicals. Her scholarly and literary works include: Fallen Cities as Fallen Women: Abu Tammam’s Ammariyah Qasidah and Ibn Al-Rumi’s Ritha Ahl Al-Basrah, Toward a Redefinition of Badi Poetry, The Muwazanah of Al-Amidi: A Critique, Archetype, Attribution in Early Arabic Poetry: Al-Shanfara’s Lamiyyat Al-Arab, and Pre-Islamic Panegyric, and the Poetics of Redemption: Mufaddaliyyah 119 of Al-Qamah and Banat Su’ad of Ka‛b Ibn Zuhayr, Ritual Patterns in the Classical Arabic Qasidah, Enter the Qasida: Critical Approaches to the Arabic Ode: Abu Firas Al-Hamdani’s Rumiyah to Sayf Al-Dawlah.

Her Publications comprise Abu Tammam and the Poetics of the Abbasid Age, The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual, Adab Al-Siyasah Wa Siyasat Al-Adab: Al-Tafsir Al-Tuqusi Li Qasidat Al-Madh Fi Al-Shear Al-Arabi Al-Qadim, The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy: Myth, Gender and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode, The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow: Late Abbasid Poetics in Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri’s Saqt Al-Zand, and Luzum Ma La Yalzam.

She also edited and reviewed several collective books and Journals in the field of Arabic Literature Studies in English, which include: Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry, Early Arabic Poetry and Poetics, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, The Modern Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction, Journal of Arabic Literature, and Studies in Arabic Literature/Brill Studies in ME Literatures.

Professor Stetkevych was honored for her efforts in the field of Arabic Literature Studies in English with several awards, including: Solomon Katz Visiting Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities in 1999; Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in 2014; the Middle East Medievalists Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017; Sheikh Zayed Book Awards: Cultural Personality of the Year in 2019, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor Muhsin Al-Musawi

Professor Muhsin Al-Musawi

by Arabic Language and Literature

Muhsin Al-Musawi holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Comparative Literary Studies from Columbia University, New York. Professor Musawi held several Academic and managerial positions including being Selected for Senior Professorship of Arabic at the American University in Cairo; Professor of Arabic Studies at American University of Sharjah (AUS); Affiliate Professor at Temple University; Professor of Arts at the University of Tunis, Manouba; Professor and Chair of Department, in Sana’a University, Yemen; Chairman of the Board, Cultural Affairs Foundation, Baghdad; Professor at Amman University, Jordan; Professor and Chair of Media Department at Baghdad University, Iraq; he is currently a Professor of Arabic literature at Columbia University, USA.

He has been a member of several Advisory Councils and Boards including: a member of the Board at the Arabic Language Center, Abu Dhabi; a chairman at the IRAF, (International Prize for Arabic Fiction); an evaluator at Freiburg Institute for Advanced Study (FRIAS) and University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS); an adviser to the British Royal Academy, the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA), the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA); and the Modern Language Association; an honorary member at the Latin American Association for Writers; a chair at the Iraqi Critics’ Association; and a member of the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

Professor Musawi has published numerous research papers specialized in Arabic Literature Studies in English in refereed journals and periodicals. His scholarly and literary works include: Al-Thakirah Al-Shabiyyah Limujtama’at Alf Laylah Wa Laylah; Al-Kamil Fi Al-Lughah Al-Arabiyyah Wa Adabiha; Al-Nazariyah Wa Al-Naqd Al-Thaqafi; Al-Nukhbah Al-Fikriyyah Wa Al-Inshiqaq; Al‑Istishraq Fi Al‑Fikr Al‑Arabi; Ru’yat Al‑Rajul Al‑saghir Fi Al‑Qissah Al‑Qasirah; As’lat Al-Thaqafah; Nazariyyat Al-Riwayah; Naz‘at AI‑Hadathah Fi Al-Qissah Al‑Iraqiyyah; Al-Mawqif Al-Thawri  Fi  Al-Riwayyah Al-Arabiyyah.

His Publications comprise Autobiographical Disclosures: The Postcolonial Arabic Atlas; The Arabian Nights in World Literature; Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition; Arabic Literary Thresholds; The Arabian Nights: Introduction and Notes; Arabic Poetry Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition; The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence; Al-Turath Al-Thaqafi Al-Arabi; Mujtama Alf Laylah Wa Laylah; Infirat Al-Iqd Al-Muqaddas; Sardiyyat Al‑Asr Al‑Islama Al‑Wasit; Al-Wuqu Fi Da’rat Al-Sihr: Alf Layla Wa Layla Fi Al-Adab Al-Injlizi; Naz‘at AI‑Hadathah Fi Al-Qissah Al‑Iraqiyyah; Al-Madamin Al-Bourjiwaziyyah Fi  Al-Shia‘r.

He also edited and reviewed several collective books and journals in the field of Arabic Literature Studies in English, which include Editor of Journal of Arabic Literature in Leiden; Member of the Editorial Board; Editorial Board of The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry; Present Editorial Board of Transforming Literary Studies: Crossing Boundaries; Modern Language Association of North America (MLA) Texts and Translations Editorial Committee; Editor of Orientalism Quarterly, Baghdad; Editor of Arab Horizons Monthly (in Arabic).

Professor Musawi was honored for his efforts in the field of Arabic Literature Studies in English with several awards, including: Sultan AL-Owais Culture Award in Literary Studies and Criticism in 2000, Kuwait Prize in Arabic Language and Literary Studies (KFAS) in 2018, and Tunis International Book Fair Prize in 2018.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - H.E. Ali Hassan Mwinyi

H.E. Ali Hassan Mwinyi

by Service to Islam

Ali Mwinyi received his primary education in the western Zanzibar region, and then joined the Maikendani School, west of Zanzibar, to complete his secondary education. Then, he joined the Institute of Education at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, where he obtained a teaching diploma, worked as a teacher and then as a director of a number of schools, as a director of the Zanzibar College for Teaching Training in the western region of Zanzibar; he received a doctorate in arts from the Open University of Tanzania, and obtained a doctorate in Philosophy of Business Administration from East African University in Kenya before deciding to enter politics.

He held several government positions, as a Minister of Interior, then as a Vice President of the former Tanzanian Julius Nyerere, and then as a President of the Republic from 1985 to 1995, and during his rule, Tanzania took the first steps to liberate itself from socialism.

During his second term, he introduced a multi-party system, which had many positive aspects to life in Tanzania, both politically and socially. He was able to turn his country into a free country, and that individual freedom was one of the important beliefs. President Mwinyi is still an active personality and a participant in many Islamic and national activities. He was awarded the Master Julius Nyerere Kambaraj Medal (Tanzania), and received an honorary doctorate from the International University of Africa – Sudan in 2015.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2022 - Professor Hassan Mahmoud Al-Shafei

Professor Hassan Mahmoud Al-Shafei

by Service to Islam

Hassan Al-Shafei obtained a B.A. in Arabic Language and Islamic Sciences from the Faculty of Dar Al Ulum, Cairo University, 1963, and a high degree from the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion, Al-Azhar University, in faith and philosophy, and a master’s degree in Islamic philosophy from the Faculty of Dar Al Uloom, University of Cairo, 1969, and a doctorate in Islamic philosophy from the University of London in 1977. He worked at Dar Al-Ulum University in Cairo from 1963, when he was appointed as a head of the Department of Islamic Philosophy in 1994, then a full-time professor of the same department in 1996. He worked in a number of universities outside Egypt, including: the Islamic University of Omdurman in 1979, Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh 1981, and was seconded to the International Islamic University in Islamabad – Pakistan in 1981, then was appointed as its president in 1998; he also worked as the president of the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo during the period (2012-2020). He is also a former member of several councils, bodies and centers, including: the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Cairo, the Center for Islamic Studies at Cairo University, and the “100” Committee entrusted with writing the new Egyptian constitution. The Council of Senior Scholars in Al-Azhar Al-Sharif. He authored, edited, and translated many books and published a number of other scientific research.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.