List of Muslim Nobel laureates

The Nobel Prize
'The Norwegian Nobel Institute' assists the Norwegian Nobel Committee in selecting Nobel Peace laureates and to organise the annual Nobel event in Oslo.

The Nobel Prize (Swedish pronunciation: [noˈbɛl], Swedish definite form, singular: Nobelpriset, Norwegian: Nobelprisen) is a set of annual international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel established the prizes in 1895. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 800 individuals,[1] of whom 12 have been Muslim.

The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901.[2] An associated prize in Economics has been awarded since 1969.[3][4] The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, while the other prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Prize is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.

Muslims make up over 23% of the world's population.[5][6][7] And as of 2015, twelve Nobel Prize winners have been Muslims. More than half of the twelve Muslim Nobel laureates were awarded the prize in the 21st century. Seven of the twelve winners have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, including a controversial award to Yasser Arafat. The recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, Abdus Salam, was a member of the Ahmadiyya community of Pakistan. Aziz Sancar is the second Turkish Nobel laureate and the first Muslim to be awarded Nobel prize in the field of molecular biology in 2015 .

Peace

Year image Laureate Country and profession Rationale comment
1978 Anwar al-Sadat (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) Egypt Egyptian President He, along with Menachem Begin was awarded 1978 Nobel Peace Prize "for their contribution to the two frame agreements on peace in the Middle East, and on peace between Egypt and Israel, which were signed at Camp David on September 17, 1978".[8] The first Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
1994 Yasser Arafat (24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004) State of Palestine Palestinian politician The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East".[16][17] The first Muslim Palestinian to receive a Nobel Prize.[9][18][19][20][21][22]
2003 Shirin Ebadi (born 21 June 1947) Iran Iranian Human Rights Activist The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Ebadi "for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children".[23] The first and only Iranian to receive a Nobel Prize. She was also the first Muslim woman to receive such an honor.[9][24][25][26][27] Note that Doris Lessing born and raised for 5 years in modern day Iran is a fellow laureate.
2005 Mohamed El Baradei (born June 17, 1942) Egypt Egyptian policymaker The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to El Baradei and IAEA "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way".[28][29] He was the second Egyptian to be awarded Nobel Peace Prize (2005).[9][30][31][32][33]
2006 Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) Bangladesh Bangladeshi economist and founder of Grameen Bank. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Yunus and Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below".[34] The first Bangladeshi and Bengali Muslim Nobel laureate, and overall, the third person from Bengal to win a Nobel prize.[9][35][36][37][38][39][40]
2011 Tawakel Karman (born 7 February 1979) Yemen Human rights activist based in Yemen. A prominent leader in the Arab Spring. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly given to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".[41] The first Arab woman and first and only Yemeni to receive a Nobel Prize.[42][43][44][45][46]
2014 Malala Yousafzai (born 12 July 1997) Pakistan Pakistani activist, working for rights to education for children in Pakistan. The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly given to Kailash Satyarthi and Yousafzai, "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".[47] At the age of 17, Yousafzai is the youngest Nobel Prize recipient ever.[48] She is also the second Pakistani and first ethnic Pashtun to be awarded a Nobel Prize.[49]
2015 Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet  Tunisia "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011"[50] First Tunisian Nobel Prize.

Literature

Year image Laureate Country and profession Rationale comment
1988 Naguib Mahfouz

(11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006)

Egypt Egyptian author, noted for his contribution to modern Arabic literature The 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature was given to Naguib Mahfouz "who, through works rich in nuance—now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous—has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind".[51][52] The first Muslim author to receive such a prize.[9][53][54]
2006 Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952) Turkey Turkish author famous for his novels My Name Is Red and Snow The 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures".[55][56] The first Turk to receive the Nobel Prize, He describes himself as a Cultural Muslim who associates the historical and cultural identification with the religion while not believing in a personal connection to God.[9][57][58][59]

Sciences

Physics

Year image Laureate Country and profession Rationale comment
1979 Mohammad Abdus Salam

(29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996)

Pakistan Pakistani physicist The 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Sheldon Lee Glashow, Salam, and Steven Weinberg "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current".[60] He is the first Pakistani to receive the award. He is also the first and only Pakistani scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize.[61][62] He was a member of the world wide Ahmadiyya Muslim community, which the government of Pakistan declared to be non-Muslim in Pakistan in a 1974 constitutional amendment.[63]

Chemistry

Year image Laureate Country and profession Rationale comment
1999 Ahmed Zewail

(born February 26, 1946)

Egypt Egyptian-American scientist The 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Ahmed Zewail "for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy".[64] He is the first Muslim chemist to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the second Muslim scientist.[9][65][66][67][68]
2015 Aziz Sancar

(born September 8, 1946)

Turkey Turkish scientist The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Aziz Sancar "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair"[69] He is the first Turkish chemist, and the second Turkish to date to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the third Muslim scientist.[70][71]

Further reading

Articles

Books

Biography

Autobiography

See also

References

The year of receiving Nobel Prize is given after each Nobel Laureate in this article. For verification of candidacy of above listed Nobel Laureates, please go to nobelprize.org,[84] and search the corresponding year of reception of Nobel Prize in the respective field.

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    ElBaradei, who describes himself as having a Muslim background, sometimes cites his favorite Christian prayer when speaking of his role on the world stage.
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    "a Bengali and a Muslim"
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    Primary Source:The biography was written by Miriam Lewis, now at IAEA, Vienna, who was at one time on the staff of ICTP (International Centre For Theoretical Physics, Trieste).
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External links

Abdus Salam was a theoretical physicist who became the first Pakistani and the first Muslim to be awarded the Nobel Prize in the sciences.”
Karman joins Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2003 for her work to bring equal rights to women in Iran, as the second Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace prize.
“As a Muslim woman, I am well aware of the difficult and severe conditions of your work and struggle,” said Ebadi in her letter today to Karman. Karman receives frequent death threats, and was thrown in jail last January. “I admire your tremendous work and courage. This victory will certainly inspire and reassure the million of Muslim women who suffer from discrimination and who fight for equality of rights between men and women—and also sends a message to countries going through the Arab Spring that true democracy will only be achieved if women also receive equal rights.”
It is not Islam or poverty that succours terrorism, but the failure to be heard
How closely have the changes and developments detailed in Mahfouz’s descriptions of ordinary Egyptian lives paralleled what the world has witnessed as ageneral growing “Islamization” of the Muslim world? In my research, I have found that other Muslim writers, such as Leila Ahmed (Egypt), Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan/India), and Orhan Pamuk (Turkey) have also observed and commented on the Islamization of the culture.
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