5 Muslim Scholars Win Mustafa Prize 2021
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Five Muslim scientists were announced winners of the Mustafa Prize 2021, a biennial award launched in 2013 with the purpose of promoting science and technology in the Islamic world.
The Mustafa Prize is awarded in four categories of information and communication science and technology, life and medical science and technology, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and all areas of science and technology.
The winners will be granted cash prizes amounting to $1 million on October 21, Tehran Times reported.
A joint award will be given to two scientists from the Islamic world residing in a non-Muslim country and a joint award to three scientists residing in the Islamic countries.
The first laureate in the field of ‘All Areas of Science and Technology’ is Harvard University professor, “Kamran Vafa”, for his work ‘F-Theory’. He was a candidate of the Fields Medal years ago.
The second laureate is “Zahid Hasan” for ‘Weyl fermion semimetals’. Hasan is originally from Bangladesh who is currently a professor at Princeton University.
Another laureate is “Mohamed H. Sayegh” from Lebanon for ‘novel therapies to improve renal and cardiac allograft outcomes’.
“Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary” for ‘discovery of fascinating molecules with therapeutic applications’ is another laureate.
“Yahya Tayalati” for ‘observation of the light by light scattering and the search for magnetic monopoles’ is the next laureate.
Mohamed H. Sayegh, Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary, and Yahya Tayalati are the 2021 Mustafa Prize laureates from Islamic countries.
The Mustafa Prize seeks to encourage education and research and play a pioneering role in developing regional relations between science and technology institutions working in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries.
It was launched in 2013, with high-profile universities and academic centers of the OIC member states defining its policies.