Dubai: An Indian was among the five scholars from across the world to receive the King Faisal international award, considered as the Arab equivalent of Nobel Prize in the region.

The Saudi Riyal 750,000 (Rs 75 lakh) prize is awarded each year for outstanding work in the fields of science, medicine, Islamic studies, Arabic literature and service to Islam.

Indian Ali Ahmad Nadvi shared his prize for Islamic studies with Saudi Yacoub Al-Bahussain. In a book on Islamic jurisprudence in financial matters, Al-Nadvi has attempted to adapt some of the concepts of earlier Islamic scholars to modern circumstances, according to the citation.

Al-Nadvi, who is the head of Shariah advisers at Al-Rajhi financial company, said one of the most distinctive features of Islamic Shariah is its stress on humanism and justice.

Al-Bahussain has made original studies of the fundamental rules of Islamic jurisprudence.

Prince Sultan, second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and Aviation, presided over the prize distribution ceremony at Al-Faisaliah Center yesterday (Mar 21, 2004). This year's science prize went to Briton Semir Zeki, a professor of neurobiology at University College London, for his seminal work on the organization of the visual brain. Swiss Professor Ulrich Sigwart, a professor of cardiology and chief of the cardiology centre at Geneva University, won the prize for medicine.

The prize for Arabic language and literature went to Hussain Muhammad Nassar of Egypt, a professor of Arabic language at Cairo University.