About Nubala
Nubala is a free reference atlas of 153 figures from the history of Islamic civilisation, filed across 12 eras, 29 cities and 10 collections, from 670 to 1981 CE. It is for a reader who has come across a name and wants a short, sourced account of the person behind it.
Every profile ends in a bibliography
Each figure page closes with a Sources list, and none is empty: 462 citations, 403 of them distinct, and 102 name an academic press. The others include encyclopedia articles, books from publishers such as Brill, and online references such as the MacTutor archive. How to read the sources a figure page cites sorts them by kind.
The citations cover a page, not a sentence. There are no footnotes, so a list of three or four works under a profile of several hundred words does not say which line came from which book. The profile itself is a summary written from those works rather than a quotation of them, and a short summary seldom shows where scholars disagree. Treat the list as a reading list, and cite the works rather than the page.
Who keeps it
One independent developer maintains Nubala, with no company, editorial board or funder behind it, and also runs Saeculum, History Atlas, HalalAtlas, HijriConv, and Fahm. The guides and profiles are published under the Nubala name with no human byline, and a guide’s structured data names the Nubala organization as its author. No academic post or credential is claimed. Guides are dated by the latest alteration to their wording, and figure, era and city pages are undated.
Limits worth knowing before you rely on it
- 153 people is a selection, not a survey. Who the atlas counts as a figure gives the rule and where coverage thins.
- It is not all Golden Age; what that label covers explains what the phrase hides.
- A tilde flags a date that is an estimate, which many are, and every date is Gregorian; converting to Hijri is accurate only to within a year.
- One scholar can go by four or five names. The atlas holds 380 aliases for search, and a spelling you met elsewhere may still miss.
- Bookmarks, notes and quiz results stay in your browser, with no backup on a server.
Reporting an error
A wrong date, a misattributed work or a citation that does not say what the page claims: email [email protected]. See also the guides, the privacy policy and the terms.