“I joined Nadwat al-ʿUlamāʾ and felt as if I had been raised from the dusty ground to the stars up above, from the level earth to the high heavens. I came across ancient books and studied with great teachers who were knowledgeable scholars, learned scribes and pious worshippers, all of noble origins and stock. . . . They were blessed with great manners, while the sciences lay at their feet. . . . They were warriors of the pen and masters of their craft. Nourished on the milk of eloquence, they might have drawn the train of oblivion over the most powerful orator.”

This is how Moḥammad Akram Nadwī fondly recalls his alma matter in the heart of Lucknow. Lessons Learned is a celebration of his journey of discovery, by sharing the biographies of some of his senior teachers along with lessons and insights learned along the way. The book is arranged topically as a critical survey of the Islamic sciences, and he selects one key teacher from each discipline he has chosen to highlight, giving us glimpses into their lives, personalities, habits and more. Some of these teachers are still alive, and many long gone but certainly not forgotten. All of this serves to provide a poignant snapshot of life and scholarship at Nadwah and opens up for the reader the Muslim literary and intellectual world of the Indian subcontinent, a topic of much interest in recent times.

Dr. Moḥammad Akram Nadwī has emerged as a leading Muslim scholar and author in the Western world. Born in rural India, he was educated in some of the best educational institutions of Muslim India—including Dār al-ʿUlūm Nadwat al-ʿUlamāʾ and the University of Lucknow—and under the tutelage of some of its most renowned scholars, including the late Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī, upon whose instruction he joined the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies as a research fellow. He is the author of numerous works on a wide range of subjects in Arabic, Urdu and English. His magnum opus is a forty-plus-volume compilation of biographies of female scholars of Islam. He continues to teach in the UK through Al-Salam Institute, Cambridge Islamic College, and other forums.