Editing The 500 Most Influential Muslims (section)

==Overview==
The publication highlights people who are influential as Muslims. That is people whose influence is derived from their practice of Islam or from the fact that they are Muslim.<ref name="guardian">{{cite news |last=Butt|first=Riazat|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/19/500-influential-muslims-list|title=The world's most influential Muslims?|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=November 19, 2009|access-date=July 1, 2013}}</ref> The influence can be of a religious scholar directly addressing Muslims and influencing their beliefs, ideas and behaviour, or it can be of a ruler shaping the socio-economic factors within which people live their lives, or of artists shaping popular culture. The first two examples also point to the fact that the lists, and especially the Top 50, are dominated by religious scholars and heads of state. Their dominant and lasting influence cannot be denied, especially the rulers, who in many cases also appoint religious scholars to their respective positions.

Nominations are evaluated on the basis of the influence that particular Muslims have had within the Muslim community and the manner in which their influence has benefited the Muslim community, both within the Islamic world and in terms of representing Islam to non-Muslims."Influential" for the purposes of the book is defined as "any person who has the power (be it cultural, ideological, financial, political or otherwise) to make a change that will have a significant impact on the Muslim World".

The publication defines eligible entries with the following: "Traditional Islam (96% of the world's Muslims): Also known as [[Orthodox Islam]], this ideology is not politicized and largely based on consensus of correct opinion—thus including the [[Sunni Islam|Sunni]], [[Shia Islam|Shi'a]], and [[Ibadi]] branches of practice (and their subgroups) within the fold of Islam, and not groups such as the [[Druze]] or the [[Ahmadiyya]], among others."

The book starts with an overall top 50, ranked the most influential Muslims in the world. The remaining 450 most prominent Muslims is broken down into 15 categories without ranking, of scholarly, political, administrative, lineage, preachers and spiritual guides, women, youth, philanthropy/charity, development, science and technology, arts and culture, [[Quran|Qu'ran]] reciters, media, radicals, international Islamic networks and issues of the day.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} Each year the biographies are updated.

The publication also gives an insight into the different ways that Muslims impact the world and also shows the diversity of how people are living as Muslims today. The book's appendices comprehensively list populations of Muslims in nations worldwide, and its introduction gives a snapshot view of different ideological movements within the Muslim world, breaking down clearly distinctions between traditional Islam and recent radical innovations.<ref name="muslimmedianetwork">{{cite news|last=James|first=Adil|url=http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=5366|title=Muslim 500 – A Listing of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World|newspaper=[[The Muslim Observer]]|date=November 17, 2009|access-date=July 1, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002213841/http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=5366|archive-date=October 2, 2011}}</ref>