Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, born April 7, 1933 in Tehran, is an Iranian-American philosopher, theologian and Islamic scholar who serves as University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He is best known for advancing philosophia perennis, or perennial philosophy, and the Traditionalist school of thought, emphasizing what he calls scientia sacra, or sacred knowledge, and arguing for the resacralization of knowledge against modern materialism and scientism, with his work centering on metaphysics, the essential unity of religions, and environmental philosophy grounded in Islamic teaching. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from MIT, a master's in geology and geophysics from Harvard, and a doctorate in the history of science from Harvard, and has authored more than fifty books including Science and Civilization in Islam, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, and Knowledge and the Sacred, based on his Gifford Lectures.