Muhammad was the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet and God's messenger, sent to present and confirm the monotheistic teachings preached previously by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is vie...

Abd al-Rahman I was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba). The Muslims called the regions of Iberia under their dominion al-Andalus....

Al-Farabi was a renowned scientist and philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age. He was also a cosmologist, logician, and musician. Through his commentaries and treatises, Al-Farabi became well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals as "...

Abu 'l-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi, or Ferdowsi was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), which is the world's longest epic poem created by a single poet, and the national epic of Greater Iran. Ferdowsi is celebrated as t...

Avicenna is the Latinate form of Ibn-Sina. He was a Persian polymath regarded both in Europe and the Middle East as one of the most significant thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. He is known to have written around 450 works acr...

Averroës is the Latinized form of Ibn Rushd, a mediæval Andalusian Muslim polymath. He wrote on logic, Aristotelian and Islamic philosophy, theology, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, psychology, political and Andalusian classical...

Saladin was the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim opposition to the European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, his sultanate include...

Osman I was the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire. The state, while only a small principality (beylik) during Osman's lifetime, was named after him and would prevail as...

Musa I was the tenth Mansa, which translates as "King of Kings" or "Emperor", of the wealthy Mali Empire. At the time of Mansa Musa's rise to the throne, the Malian Empire consisted of territory formerly belonging to the Ghana Empire and Me...

Alauddin Khalji, born as Ali Gurshasp, was the second and the most powerful emperor of the Khalji dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent. Alauddin instituted a number of significant administrative changes, related...

Ibn Battuta, Muslim traveler from Tangier. No other medieval traveler is known to have journeyed so extensively. In 30 years (from c.1325) he made a series of journeys recorded in a dictated account. He traveled overland in North Africa and...

Hafez was a Persian poet who "laud[ed] the joys of love and wine [but] also targeted religious hypocrisy". His collected works are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature and are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran, who lea...

Zheng He, formerly romanized as Cheng Ho, was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family, later adopted the conferred surname...

Mehmed II (1432-1481), nicknamed the conqueror, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire a short time in 1444 to 1446, and from 1451 to 1481. Mehmed II brought an end to the Byzantine Empire by capturing Constantinople in 1453 (during the well-...

Hayreddin Barbarossa was an Ottoman admiral of the fleet who was born in the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos) and died in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Medi...