The ‘Association of Muslim Scientists UK’ was a network of Muslim scholars masterminded by Dr Anas S. Al Shaikh-Ali CBE FRSA. Its annual conferences were amongst the first fora at which Muslim academics and writers were able to assemble and discuss their work. The organising committee of the first conference held in October 1999 at the London School of Economics comprised Dr Shaikh-Ali, Shiraz Khan, Alexandra Grayson, Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Husam El-Khatib and Sohail Nakhooda. Dr Shaikh-Ali has a long-standing association with IIIT (International Institute of Islamic Thought) founded in the US in 1991, which has as its leading lights Dr. Jamal Barzinji, Dr Ahmad Totonji and Dr Ahmed Sakr. Speakers at the AMSS’s landmark LSE conference included presentations by young scholars who were to make their mark within British academia – Maleiha Malik (Law), AbdelWahab El-Effendi (Political Science) , Mehmet Asutay (Islamic Economics), Mohammed Mukadam (Islamic Education), Mawil Izzi Dien (Islamic Environmental concerns) and Sulaiman (Bobby) Sayyid (Political Philosophy).