Ali Miyan
Maulana Sayyid Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi known by the simple title Ali Miyan was widely respected as a scholar of Qur'anic commentary and other traditional knowledge; he was a prolific writer of biography, history, and contemporary commentary; and he was a renowned leader in numerous institutions focusing on the political, educational, and social life of Muslims today. He is credited with writing perhaps a hundred books in Urdu and in Arabic, many of which have been translated into English and other languages.

Born in Rae Bareli, India, in 1914, Ali Miyan was associated, from his student days, with the Nadwat al Ulama in Lucknow, an institution founded early in the century to bridge the gap between the Western and the classically educated elites. A further goal of the Nadwa was to foster interaction with the Arab world and to cultivate a high standard of Arabic learning. Ali Miyan's own life richly fulfilled those objectives. His grandfather was among the founders of the institution; his father, the eminent scholar Abd al-Hayy Hasani (d. 1926), was its rector, as was his elder brother, whom Ali Miyan succeeded as rector in 1961.

One significant dimension of Ali Miyan's scholarly work was to help shape a historical heritage of Muslim political, intellectual, and spiritual leadership by writing histories and biographies of the great figures of the Indian Muslim tradition from Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi in the l7th century to the leaders of the contemporary Tablighi Jamacat movement. His connection with the Tabligh movement began in 1939, and he supported the movement through his writings and also by his own participation in dawa as well as his influence on those associated with Nadwa to participate as well. It is as someone whose energy was focused on spiritual and educational matters that he became an influential spokesman for Muslims in India.