Title: Luminaries of the Islamic Golden Age
Subtitle: Polymaths Who Shaped Our World
Description: Why did I undertake this intellectual journey — a journey into the past to rediscover its meaning for our present world?

As **His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV** insightfully observed:

“The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilizations are founded. And yet this fact is seldom acknowledged today, be it in the West or in the Muslim world, and this amnesia has left a six-hundred-year gap in the history of human thought.”

He further noted:

“Muslim scholars sharpened the cutting edge of knowledge and they were the equivalents of thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, Galileo and Newton. Yet their names are scarcely known in the West today. 

**How many would recognize the name al-Khwarizmi — the Persian mathematician who developed, some 1,200 years ago, the algorithm which is the foundation of search engine technology?”**

These words ignited in me a spark to explore and rediscover this remarkable heritage. 

**This e-book, Luminaries of the Islamic Golden Age (LIGA), is a curated introduction to nearly thirty thinkers from the 8th to 14th centuries. Written for a general audience, it seeks to inspire curiosity about their enduring legacy.** The polymathic brilliance of these scholars provided a vital influx of knowledge that helped fuel the European Renaissance.

This endeavour also gave rise to A Picture Book with a Purpose — a visual journey through the remarkable achievements of luminaries who shaped human history. 

My hope is that this work offers a window into the artistic, intellectual, and scientific contributions that Muslim civilizations made to world heritage. Perhaps the next time you search for something online, you’ll pause to remember the name Al-Khwarizmi — the visionary who laid the groundwork for the algorithm, centuries before Google was born.

Ultimately, the profiles of these luminaries — many of them polymaths — also offer timeless lessons from the medieval past that can guide us in navigating our own VUCA world: one marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Time periods: The Middle Ages