Dr. Iqbal received his Ph.D. in chemistry (University of Saskatchewan, Canada, 1983), but left the field of experimental science to fully devote himself to study Islam, its spiritual, intellectual and scientific traditions. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, he has lived in Canada since 1979. He has held academic and research positions at University of Saskatchewan (1979-1984), University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984-85), and McGill University (1986). During 1990-1999, he was the Director of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH). He is the editor of Islamic Sciences, a semi-annual journal of Islamic perspectives on science and civilization and the general editor of the seven-volume Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān. Dr. Iqbal has written, translated, and edited twenty-three books and published nearly one hundred papers on various aspects of Islamic spiritual and intellectual traditions, the relationship between Islam and science, Islam and the West and the history of Islamic science. His publications include God, Life and the Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives (co-ed., Ashgate, 2002), Science and Islam (Greenwood Press, 2007) and The Making of Islamic Science (IBT, 2009). Several of his works have been translated into Chinese, Turkish, Urdu, and Persian. He is also the Series Editor for Islam and Science: Historic and Contemporary Perspectives (Ashgate, 2012), a four-volume work on Islam and science. He co-translated volume VII of Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, an influential twentieth century tafsīr (Islamic Foundation, 2001). Dr. Iqbal is the founder-president of Center for Islamic Sciences (Canada) and co-founder of the Muslim Education Foundation in Canada.
