Born in 1942 in Azamgarh (UP, India), he is a retired professor of Hamdard University, New Delhi. His areas of specialisation are Unani Medicine and Islamic Studies. At Hamdard, he was the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies and Social Sciences, and also served as head of the Centre for History of Medicine & Science. He has authored more than two dozen books on different subjects of Islamic Studies and Medicine, besides a 3-volume commentary in Urdu on the Holy Qur’an. He was the editor of Hamdard’s journal “Studies in History of Medicine and Science”; and was a member of the Advisory Board (Medieval Period) at the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.