Summary

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a contemporary Islamic philosopher with global influence. His oeuvre covers an extended field from the perennial philosophy, which dominates his philosophical worldview, to religion, science, environmental studies, education, and the arts with particular attention to Islamic and comparative studies, as well as criticism of modernism. Grounded in Islamic tradition, Nasr’s far-reaching ideas have been acknowledged by the global scholarly community. Nasr is the only Muslim thinker included in the Library of Living Philosophers (LLP). Since its inception in 1939, the LLP has featured some of the greatest of the 20th century’s Western philosophers and scientists, namely A. N. Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, J. P. Sartre, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Richard Rorty, and Hilary Putnam. Nasr was also the first Muslim and non-Westerner to deliverthe prestigious Gifford lectures whose contributors also include prominent intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Noam Chomsky, William James, Iris Murdoch, Charles Taylor, and Rowan Williams.

Nasr’s written corpus contains some thirty thousand pages in print, which have generated a great deal of interest, contention, and controversy in the Islamic world and beyond. One should also consider his innumerable media appearances, public lectures, and interviews that often complement and expand upon his written corpus. Nasr is perhaps most famous for being one of the first people to predict, diagnose, and provide a response to the ecological crisis, having spoken out on the topic as early as 1966. He is considered the father of “Islamic environmentalism,” which is now gaining momentum in the Muslim world. Nasr also made important contributions to topics such as Islamic science and philosophy, religious pluralism, Islamic art and spirituality, and Sufi-Chinese dialogue.