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• The Sabri Brothers 1978 Band Music and nasheed Pakistan

  Pakistani qawwali party (1956–2021) fronted by the brothers Ghulam Farid Sabri and Maqbool Ahmed Sabri and closely connected with the Chishti order; the first qawwals to perform in the West and the first Asian artists at Carnegie Hall (1975), known for 'Tajdar-e-Haram' and 'Bhar Do Jholi Meri', and holders of the Pride of Performance (1978).

• Jamia Binoria 1978 University Learning and knowledge

  Jamia Binoria.

• Jordan Islamic Bank 1978 Company Enterprise, brands and finance

  Jordan Islamic Bank.

• Abd al-Halim Mahmud 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian scholar (1910–1978), Grand Imam of al-Azhar from 1973 until his death. Trained at al-Azhar and at the Sorbonne, where his 1940 doctorate treated al-Harith al-Muhasibi, he wrote more than sixty works, many on Sufism and philosophy, and is remembered for restoring al-Azhar's public standing and for arguing that Egypt's civil code should be replaced by sharia.

• Abdul Majid Sindhi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Shaikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi (1889–1978), a Sindhi writer, journalist and politician. Born at Thatta into a Hindu family under the name Jetha Nand, he converted to Islam in 1908, edited the newspapers Al-Amin and Al-Waheed, took part in the Silk Letter Movement and was twice imprisoned, was elected to the Sindh Assembly in 1937 and became a minister in Sindh in 1940.

• Atupele Muluzi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Malawian politician (born 1978), the son of President Bakili Muluzi. He was elected MP for Machinga North East in 2004 and held the seat until 2019, led the United Democratic Front, was arrested in 2012 after an opposition rally, and held ministerial portfolios under Presidents Joyce Banda and Peter Mutharika — economic planning, natural resources, home affairs, lands and health — stood for the presidency in 2019 and was Mutharika's running mate in 2020.

• Ayman Hariri 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Lebanese businessman and technology entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of the social network Vero and former deputy CEO of Saudi Oger. He is a son of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri.

• Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi (born 1978) is an Emirati publisher and public official, a daughter of the Ruler of Sharjah. She founded Kalimat Group, the UAE's first dedicated Arabic children's publisher, in 2007, co-founded the Emirates Publishers Association in 2009, and served as president of the International Publishers Association in 2021–2022 — its first Arab president and second woman president. She has been president of the American University of Sharjah since 2022, and in 2025 she was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Education and Book Culture.

• Hassan Al Thawadi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Hassan Al Thawadi (born 1978) is a Qatari lawyer who was Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the body that delivered the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. A law graduate of the University of Sheffield, he led Qatar's bid and tournament delivery and was the country's most prominent public voice in answering criticism over workers' rights and the bid-corruption allegations, which he denied.

• Henry Corbin 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Draft card for Henry Corbin, the French scholar of Iranian philosophy, Ibn Arabi and Suhrawardi; he died in 1978 and his entry is not yet checked on the page.

• Houari Boumédiène 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Houari Boumédiène (1932–1978) was an Algerian officer and politician, born Mohammed ben Brahim Boukharouba. He commanded the FLN's military wing in the war of independence, became minister of defence after independence, then overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella in 1965 and ruled Algeria, as chairman of the Revolutionary Council and then as president, until his death in office.

• Ibn-e-Insha 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani Urdu poet and writer (1927–1978), born Sher Muhammad Khan and known by his pen name Ibn-e-Insha. He was celebrated for his ghazals, humour poetry, travelogues and newspaper columns, and his verse reached a wide audience through radio and song.

• Imran Hussain 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Imran Hussain (born 7 June 1978 in Bradford, West Yorkshire) is a British Labour politician and barrister who has been MP for Bradford East since 2015. A Bradford city councillor from 2002 and deputy leader of the council from 2010 to 2015, he held Labour shadow posts from 2016, resigning as a shadow minister in November 2023 over Keir Starmer's refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza; he sat as an independent from July 2024 to February 2025 after the whip was suspended over his vote to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

• Jokha Alharthi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Omani writer and academic, born in 1978; associate professor of Arabic literature at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, with a doctorate in classical Arabic literature from the University of Edinburgh (2011). Her novel Sayyidat al-Qamar, in Marilyn Booth's English translation Celestial Bodies, won the Man Booker International Prize in 2019, making her the first Arab author to win it; her other novels include Manamat, Narinjah (Bitter Orange Tree) and Harir al-Ghazala (Silken Gazelles).

• Kareem Salama 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  The Muslim American country singer from Oklahoma, blending Americana with Sufi verse.

• K'naan 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Somali-Canadian rapper, singer-songwriter and filmmaker, born in Mogadishu in 1978, who fled the civil war with his family to Toronto at thirteen. He rose to international fame with 'Wavin' Flag', chosen as Coca-Cola's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, won a Grammy Award in 2024 for the song 'Refugee', and directed the film Mother Mother (2024).

• Muhammad Ma Jian 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Hui Chinese Muslim scholar and translator from Shadian, Yunnan (1906–1978). He studied under Hu Songshan and at the Shanghai Islamic Normal School, was sent to al-Azhar in Cairo in 1931 in the first Chinese government-sponsored group, taught Arabic and Islamic studies at Peking University from 1946, and translated the whole Qur'an into Chinese; his translation remains the most widely used in China.

• Mohamed Aboutrika 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian retired professional footballer, born in Nahia, Giza in 1978. An attacking midfielder and second striker who came through Tersana before joining Al Ahly in 2004, where he became a central figure of the club's dominant side; he earned 100 caps and scored 38 goals for Egypt, winning the Africa Cup of Nations in 2006 and 2008 and scoring the winning goal in the 2008 final. A philosophy graduate of Cairo University, he is also noted for humanitarian work and philanthropy off the pitch.

• Mohamed Hassan Ouazzani 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Moroccan journalist and politician (1910–1978), born at Fez and educated there and in Paris, and one of the leaders of the Moroccan national movement: in 1933 he founded L'Action du Peuple, the first French-language nationalist newspaper in Morocco, and in 1934 he co-founded the Moroccan Action Committee with Allal al-Fassi before parting from him to lead his own movement. France deported him to the Moroccan south from 1937 to 1946; on his return he founded the Democratic Independence Party, demanding full independence and a constitutional monarchy. He became a minister of state in 1961, lost his right hand in the 1971 coup attempt and learned to write with his left, and died at Fez in 1978.

• Mohammad Daoud Khan 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Afghan military officer and politician of the Musahiban royal family, born at Kabul in 1909. He was prime minister (1953–1963) under his cousin King Zahir Shah, then overthrew the monarchy in the 1973 coup, proclaimed the republic and became its first president, until he was assassinated with most of his family in the communist Saur Revolution on 28 April 1978.

• Mustafa Hosny 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian preacher born in Cairo in 1978, a graduate of the Faculty of Commerce at Ain Shams University and of the preachers' institute of the Ministry of Awqaf, who according to the Arabic Wikipedia has prepared and presented more than fifty television and radio programmes since 2003, on channels including Iqraa, al-Nahar and ON; the Assabile archive keeps three of his Ramadan series, among them 'Ish al-Lahza' ('Live the Moment'), on life's great moments and the divine names, and 'Hadaya al-Rahman' ('Gifts of the Merciful'), on small deeds with great reward.

• Mustafa Ismail 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Egyptian Qur'an reciter (1905–1978), born in the village of Mit Gazal in Gharbia. He mastered the maqamat and the recitation modes, was the first reciter recorded by Egyptian Radio without examination, was chosen by King Farouk as reciter of the royal palace, recited at Al-Aqsa Mosque, recorded the whole Qur'an in tartil, and left more than 1,300 recitations still broadcast.

• Najib Baladi 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  One of the first cohort at the Egyptian University and a pioneer of contemporary Arab philosophical thought.

• Nouman Ali Khan 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  American Muslim speaker of Pakistani descent, born in East Berlin in 1978. He founded the Bayyinah Institute for Arabic and Qur'anic Studies in Texas in 2006 and is known for lectures on the Qur'an and classical Arabic that reached a wide online audience.

• Rehman Chishti 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Rehman Chishti (born 4 October 1978 in Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir) is a British Conservative politician and barrister. He came to the United Kingdom aged six to join his father, an imam in Gillingham, was called to the Bar in 2001, advised Benazir Bhutto from 1999 to 2007, and was MP for Gillingham and Rainham from 2010 to 2024. He served as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief from 2019 to 2020, resigning from the post over the Internal Market Bill.

• Seyed Majid Banifatemeh 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Iranian maddah (eulogist) from Tehran who began maddahi in earnest in 1371 SH (1992–93) at the age of fifteen, performs at the Heyat Reyhanat al-Hossein in Tehran's Bagh Feyz district, and is known to the public through the noheh 'Amoo Abbas'; he is Iran's most-followed maddah on Instagram, where his account counted 1,176,156 followers in November 2026 per an on-platform profile read.

• Shady Alsuleiman 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  An Australian imam and community leader, born in Sydney in 1978 to a Palestinian family that had migrated to Australia in the late 1960s. He is the founder of the United Muslims of Australia and Sydney Islamic College, and has been president of the Australian National Imams Council since 2016 after serving as its secretary; he is listed in The Muslim 500. He received an ijazah with sanad in complete memorisation of the Qur'an in Sindh, Pakistan, and spent six years studying in Damascus, specialising in Arabic and comparative fiqh.

• Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  Pakistani-Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker, born in Karachi in 1978. She is known for films that highlight inequality against women, won two Academy Awards for Saving Face (2012) and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness (2016) and seven Emmy Awards, was the first Pakistani to win an Academy Award, received Pakistan's Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 2012, and was named by TIME among the world's 100 most influential people that year.

• Swizz Beatz 1978 Figures of the last fifty years

  American record producer and rapper, born Kasseem Daoud Dean in the Bronx, New York City, on 13 September 1978. He rose through his family's Ruff Ryders label and his production for its artist DMX, founded Full Surface Records in 2001, produced hits for Beyoncé, Kanye West and many others, won a Grammy Award, and co-created the Verzuz webcast series with Timbaland in 2020.

• Midnight Express 1978 Film Films United KingdomUnited States

  Midnight Express.

• Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) 1978 Book Books and publishers

  A study of the Prophet's biography by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri that took first place among 171 entries in the Muslim World League's sira competition, whose results were announced in Shaban 1398 AH and whose prizes were handed over in Mecca in 1399 AH (1979); it opens with Arabia before Islam and follows the life in chronological order to the Prophet's death, and was translated into English as The Sealed Nectar and into other languages.

• The Message 1976 Film Films United KingdomKuwaitLebanon

  An epic film on the birth of Islam directed and produced by Moustapha Akkad, shot in Morocco and Libya in separate Arabic and English versions with different casts, and first shown in London on 29 July 1976 as Mohammad, Messenger of God before being retitled The Message; the Prophet is never seen or heard, Maurice Jarre's score was nominated for an Oscar, and the film was long banned in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.