Leading Scientific Countries of the Islamic World in the Web of ScienceDatabase

This research analyses scientific publications of Islamic countries in the “Web of Science” databasedated between 1944 and 2008. In doing so, the extent to which Islamic countries have produced international scientific publications and the number of times they have been cited are studied. The population of this research project consists of 16 Islamic countries (of a total of 57 Islamic countries) whose publications in the Web of Science database were more than the average of scientific publications. Among a total of 429,643 documents published by Islamic countries in the Web of Science database from 1994 to 2008, the 16 studied countries contributed 369,303 documents (83.3%). In other words, Islamic countries contributed 2.7 percent of material in the Web of Science database between 1994 and 2008, and more than 2.4 percent of those documents were published by the 16 studied countries. Ananalysis of the data revealed that the average number of publications of Islamic countries had an increasing trend in the studied period with Iran having the highest amount of increase in its publications. A study of the scientific map of the top ten authors in the studied countries reveals that in the field of chemistry, Iranian authors were most cited among authors of Islamic countries, and at a global level, Lebanon was the most cited country in the field of immunology. According to the findings, universities and scientific and research centers of Islamic countries may establish scientific relations to learn from.the experiences of countries leading in different fields.