São Paulo – The King Faisal Prize of Saudi Arabia opened applications on Monday (1) for the 2027 edition. Organized by the King Faisal Foundation, the award targets individuals and projects with efforts focused on Islam, Muslims, and humanity. Nominations can be submitted by academic and scientific institutions as well as research centers, Saudi state news agency SPA said.
The prize comprises five categories—Service to Islam, Islamic Studies, Arabic Language and Literature, Medicine, and Science—and the subjects for the 2026 prize’s categories are as follows: Islamic Studies: Contemporary Applied Jurisprudential Studies, Arabic Language and Literature: Institutional Efforts in Arabic Language Processing, Medicine: Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Medicine, and Science: Chemistry.
The winners of the 2025 edition in the Service to Islam category were the Tebyan Quran Project for the Deaf by the Liajlehum Association for Serving People with Disabilities from Saudi Arabia, for its significant provision of a complete Quranic interpretation in sign language, and Sami Abdullah Almaqhlouth, also from Saudi Arabia, for his efforts in documenting Islamic history, especially in atlases.
In the other categories, winners included Michel Sadelain from Canada, in Medicine, for his work in cell therapy with a focus on genetic engineering for the treatment of hematologic cancers; and Sumio Iijima from Japan, in Science, for establishing the field of carbon nanotubes following his pioneering discovery of carbon nanotubes using electron microscopy.
The prize’s General Secretariat says that nominations submitted by individuals or political parties are not accepted, that nominated works must have been published benefiting humanity and human knowledge, and that dissertations or posthumous nominations will not be accepted, among other rules. Applications for the 2027 edition can be submitted until March 31, 2026. More information is available on the prize’s website.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
