International researchers and specialised issued their annual report of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world for the year 2013. The report singled out the first 50 with further analysis and photographs.

The report said that the professor Abdullah bin Bayyah – who rose six points to reach 23rd – is one of the most prominent scholars in the current era. He draws his influence from his knowledge and his efforts in education and advocacy, and is unique insofar as he is respected and accepted by the majority of Islamic schools of thought. The report also mentioned his visit to the White House in 2013 where he called for the rights of Muslim minorities in Myanmar and international intervention to protect the Syrian people, and his meeting with Microsoft’s Bill Gates to form an alliance in an international campaign to fight polio. The Shaykh has over 123,000 followers on twitter.

Commenting on the report, Shaykh bin Bayyah said, ‘It has been amongst the customs of the West to publish some polls and conduct some studies for figures in their country, whether scientific or political or literary, artists and so on; but it seems that some of the Westerners became interested in what is happening in the Muslim world, and who therefore publish these surveys on the impact of scholars in the Islamic world. This is something that could be positive – and that there is some kind of attention from the focus on some of the positives that occur in the Islamic world.’

(From the book titled “500 most influential Muslim figure in the world for 2013”, published by the Royal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Amman, Jordan, in cooperation with the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim – Christian understanding, Georgetown University.)