Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on 7 April 1933 in Tehran, Iran. He bridged Islamic studies to Western philosophy, science, and religion. Awarded a PhD in 1958, he declined a position at MIT and returned to Iran as Professor in the History of Science and Philosophy at Tehran. Appointed President of the Aryamehr University in 1972, the Queen of Iran chose Nasr to establish the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy in 1973. He returned to the US in 1979 as Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Utah, then at Temple University, and since 1984, at George Washington University.
The first Iranian undergraduate student at MIT, he was also the youngest full professor at the University of Tehran. Nasr delivered the Wiegand Lectures in 1983 and the Cadbury Lectures in 1994. Important works include Science and Civilization in Islam (1968), The Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World (1993), The Islamic Intellectual History in Persia (1994), Religion and the Order of Nature (1996), The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity (2002), and Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization (2003).
