[1] In the obituary of the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London) where Madelung worked his last years, it reads:[2] "With particular reference to religious schools and movements in early Islam, his studies, based on a vast array of primary sources, have enriched the discipline’s understanding of almost every major Muslim movement and community – not only early Imami Shi‘ism and the later developments of Twelver, Ismaili and Zaydi Islam but also the lesser known aspects of Sunni, Khariji and the Mu‘tazili schools of theology and philosophy."

[6] Wilferd Madelung enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington DC before going to Cairo in 1951 to study Arabic literature and Islamic history;[7] there he was a student of "Muḥammad Kamil Ḥusayn (1901–1961), who edited numerous Ismaili texts of the Fatimid period".

[9] Madelung received his doctorate and habilitation at the University of Hamburg in Germany (lecturer for Islamic studies 1963–1966).

[14] From 1999, he was a member of the British Academy,[15] and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London.

[17] Later, Madelung was also involved in publishing early Arabic writings of spiritually oriented alchemy (see list of publications).