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Seyyed Hossein Nasr (born April 7, 1933) is an
Iranian-American Iranian-Americans, also known as Persian-Americans, are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry, or who hold Iranian citizenship. Most Iranian-Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as a result of the Irani ...
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
,
philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...
, and Islamic scholar. He is University Professor of
Islamic studies Islamic studies is the academic study of Islam, which is analogous to related fields such as Jewish studies and Quranic studies. Islamic studies seeks to understand the past and the potential future of the Islamic world. In this multidiscipli ...
at
George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...
. Born in
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
, Nasr completed his education in the
Imperial State of Iran Imperial is that which relates to an empire, Emperor, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania ...
and the United States, earning a B.A. in
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
, a M.A. in
geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...
and
geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...
, and a
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in the
history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...
from
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
. He returned to his homeland in 1958, turning down teaching positions at MIT and Harvard, and was appointed a professor of philosophy and Islamic sciences at
Tehran University The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...
. He held various academic positions in Iran, including
vice-chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...
at Tehran University and president of Aryamehr University, and established the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy at the request of Empress
Farah Pahlavi Farah Pahlavi (; []; born 14 October 1938) is the former Queen and last Empress () of Pahlavi Iran and is the third wife and widow of the last List of monarchs of Iran, Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. She was born into a prosperous Ira ...
, which soon became one of the most prominent centers of philosophical activity in the
Islamic world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...
. During his time in Iran, he studied with several traditional masters of
Islamic philosophy Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—''falsafa'' (), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, mathematics, and p ...
and
sciences Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran forced him to exile with his family to the United States, where he has lived and taught Islamic sciences and philosophy ever since. He has been an active representative of the Islamic philosophical tradition and the perennialist school of thought, especially its Traditionalist stream. Nasr's works offer a critique of modern worldviews as well as a defense of Islamic and perennialist doctrines and principles. Central to his argument is the claim that knowledge has become desacralized in the
modern period The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...
, meaning that it has become severed from its divine source –
God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
or the Ultimate Reality – which calls for its resacralization through the utilization of sacred traditions and sacred science. Although
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
and
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
are major influences on his writings, his perennialist approach inquires into the essence of all orthodox religions, regardless of their formal particularities. His
environmental philosophy Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...
is expressed in terms of Islamic environmentalism and resacralization of nature. He is the author of over fifty books and more than five hundred articles.


Biography


Early life

Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on April 7, 1933 in
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
,
Imperial State of Iran Imperial is that which relates to an empire, Emperor, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania ...
, to Seyyed Valiollah Nasr, who was a
physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
to the Iranian royal family, philosopher, and ''homme de lettres'', and one of the founders of modern education in Iran. He is a descendant of Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri from his mother's side, is the cousin of Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, as well as the father of American academic Vali Nasr. The surname "Nasr", which means "victory", was given to his grandfather by
Reza Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi born Reza Khan (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the roughly 53 years old Pahlavi dynasty. Originally a military officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war an ...
. The honorific title " Seyyed" indicates a descendant of the Islamic prophet
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
.


Education

Nasr completed his primary education in Tehran. His education was supplemented by religious and philosophical discussions with his father and an entourage of theologians, ministers, scholars, and mystics. He immersed himself in
Quranic studies Quranic studies is the academic study of the Quran, the central religious text of Islam. Like in biblical studies, the field uses and applies a diverse set of Academic discipline, disciplines and methods, such as philology, textual criticism, lex ...
,
Persian literature Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...
,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and French languages at an early age. While he was completing his first year of secondary school at Firooz Bahram High School, his father was hurt in a serious accident, so his mother sent him to continue his education in the United States so that he would not be present at the time of his father's imminent death. He would later say that there are three things that his father left him: "first of all, love of knowledge for our own
Persian culture The culture of Iran () or culture of PersiaYarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) is one of the oldest and among the most influential in the world. Iran (Persia) is widely regarded as one of the cradles of civilization.
, our
religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...
,
literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, ...
,
philosophical tradition List of philosophies, schools of thought and philosophical movements. A Absurdism – Academic skepticism – Accelerationism - Achintya Bheda Abheda – Action, philosophy of – Actual idealism – Actualism – Advaita Vedanta ...
; secondly, an avid interest in what was going on in the West in the realm of science and philosophy, literature and everything else; thirdly, a sense of serenity that he had within himself." In the United States, Nasr first attended Peddie School in
Hightstown, New Jersey Hightstown is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Nestled within the Raritan River, Raritan Valley region, Hightstown is an historic, commercial, and cultural hub of Cent ...
, graduating in 1950 as the
valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the class rank, highest-performing student of a graduation, graduating class of an academic institution in the United States. The valedictorian is generally determined by an academic institution's grade poin ...
of his class. He then applied to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
in
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
to study
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
and was accepted with a scholarship. When he realized, after an encounter with the philosopher
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
, that the study of physics would not bring answers to his questions, he enrolled in additional courses on
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
and
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
with Giorgio de Santillana who introduced him to the works of
René Guénon René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as Abdalwahid Yahia (; ), was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esoterici ...
. From there, Nasr discovered the works of other Perennialist metaphysicians, notably Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, and Marco Pallis. This school of thought has shaped Nasr's life and thinking ever since. The widow of Commaraswamy gave him access to the library of her late husband, and Nasr spent much of his time there and worked to catalogue the library. He visited Schuon and Burckhardt in
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
while still a student, and was initiated into the Alawite branch of the
Shadhili The Shadhili Order () is a tariqah or Sufi order. The Shadhili order was founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili in the 13th century and is followed by millions of people around the world. Many followers (Arabic ''murids'', "seekers") of the Shadhil ...
Sufi order A ''tariqa'' () is a religious order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking , which translates as "ultimate truth". A tariqa has a (guide) who plays the r ...
. He considered the works of Schuon, with central importance given to the practice of a spiritual discipline in addition to doctrinal knowledge, especially instrumental in determining his intellectual and spiritual life. After receiving a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...
degree in
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
in 1954, Nasr enrolled in the graduate program in
geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...
and
geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...
at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, where he received a
Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...
degree in both fields in 1956, and went on to pursue his
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in the
history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...
and learning at the same university. He planned to write his dissertation under the supervision of
George Sarton George Alfred Leon Sarton (; 31 August 1884 – 22 March 1956) was a Belgian-American chemist and historian. He is considered the founder of the discipline of the history of science as an independent field of study. His most influential works were ...
, but Sarton died before he could begin his dissertation work and so he wrote it under the direction of I. Bernard Cohen, Hamilton Gibb, and Harry Wolfson. At the age of twenty-five, Nasr graduated with a Ph.D. from Harvard University and completed his first book, ''Science and Civilization in Islam'', the title being a direct tribute to '' Science and Civilization in China'', the work by
Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, initia ...
which had for task to present to Westerners the complex developments of the
history of science and technology in China Ancient Han Chinese, Chinese scientists and engineers made significant scientific innovations, findings and technological advances across various scientific disciplines including the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, military technology ...
, a mission Nasr was himself following for the Islamic civilization. His doctoral dissertation entitled "Conceptions of Nature in Islamic Thought" was published in 1964 by
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...
as ''An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines''. Apart from mastering the Arabic and French he was initially taught in his childhood, during his student years Nasr also learned Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish and German.


Back to Iran

After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1958, Nasr was offered the position of associate professor at MIT, as well as a three-year research position as a junior fellow followed by a formal teaching position at Harvard, but he decided to return to Iran. That same year,
Tehran University The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...
hired him as associate professor of philosophy and the history of science. He continued his study of Islamic sciences with traditional Iranian masters and philosophers (
Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i (; 16 March 1903 – 15 November 1981) was an Iranian scholar, theorist, philosopher and one of the most prominent thinkers of modern Shia Islam. He is perhaps best known for his '' Tafsir al-Mizan'', a twenty-seven-vol ...
, Allameh Sayyed Abul Hasan Rafiee Qazvini and Sayyid Muhammad Kazim Assar), completing his dual education, academic and traditional. He had married and started a family at this point. His son, Vali Nasr, would go on to become an academic and specialist on the Islamic world. At thirty, Nasr was the youngest person to become a full professor at Tehran University. He was quickly recognized as an authority in Islamic philosophy, Islamic science and
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
. For fifteen years he conducted a doctoral seminar in comparative philosophy and Islamic philosophy with Henry Corbin who was at that time the director of the French Institute for Iranian Studies in Tehran. Five years later he would be made the dean of the faculty of letters and then vice-chancellor of the university. In 1972, the
Shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...
chose him to become the president of Aryamehr University (now Sharif University of Technology). There, Nasr created a faculty for the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
in order to encourage the students not to focus exclusively on scientific matters. He also designed courses that focused on the assessment of modern technology and its impact on human society and the environment. During this time, he was also involved in the creation of the Islamic and Iranian studies departments at Harvard, Princeton, the
University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
, and the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
. Nasr refused to engage in the politics of his country despite a number of offers for ministerial positions and ambassadorship. In 1974, Empress Farah Pahlavi commissioned him to establish and lead the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy (now the Institute for Research in Philosophy), the first academic institution to be conducted in accordance with the intellectual principles of the
Traditionalist School Traditionalism, also known as the Traditionalist School, is a school of thought within perennial philosophy. Originating in the thought of René Guénon in the 20th century, it proposes that a single primordial, metaphysical truth forms the so ...
. During that time, Nasr, Tabataba'i,
William Chittick William Clark Chittick (born June 29, 1943) is an American philosopher, writer, translator, and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively ...
,
Peter Lamborn Wilson Peter Lamborn Wilson (October 20, 1945 – May 22, 2022) was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wils ...
, Kenneth Morgan,
Sachiko Murata Sachiko Murata (村田幸子, born 1943) is a Japanese scholar of comparative philosophy and mysticism and a professor of religion and Asian studies at Stony Brook University. Life Born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan in 1943, Murata received he ...
, Toshihiko Izutsu, and Henry Corbin held various philosophical discourses. The book ''
Shi'ite Islam Shia Islam is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political Succession to Muhammad, successor (caliph) and as the spiritual le ...
'' and the traditionalist journal ''Sophia Perennis'' were products of this period. In 1978, he was named director of the Empress's private bureau, while continuing to teach philosophy at Tehran University, and serve as chancellor of Aryamehr University, and president of the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy.


Return to the West

In January 1979, the
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...
brought an end to the Pahlavi dynasty, and Nasr, who was visiting London with his family at the time, was unable to return to Iran. As a result, he lost his possessions, including his manuscripts and library. His family later settled in Boston. After teaching for a few months at the
University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
, Nasr was appointed a professor of
Islamic studies Islamic studies is the academic study of Islam, which is analogous to related fields such as Jewish studies and Quranic studies. Islamic studies seeks to understand the past and the potential future of the Islamic world. In this multidiscipli ...
at
Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...
in Philadelphia, which had one of the largest Ph.D. programs in religious studies in the United States. Ismail al-Faruqi was his colleague during his time there. During the 1980 – 1981 academic year, Nasr delivered the Gifford lectures at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
, which were later published under the title ''Knowledge and the Sacred''. According to William Chittick, "three out of the four of his first books in English (''An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines'', ''Three Muslim Sages'', and ''Science and Civilization in Islam'') were published by
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...
, and they immediately established him as one of the major and original voices in Islamic studies. His strong endorsement of the writings of Schuon and Burckhardt in these books were in turn instrumental in bringing the Traditionalist school to the notice of official academia". Nasr left Temple University in 1984 to become a professor of Islamic studies at
George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...
in Washington, D.C., a position he holds to this day. That same year, he established the Foundation for Traditional Studies which published the journal ''Sophia'' and works on traditional thought. He has authored over fifty books and over five hundred articles based on the principles of the ''philosophia perennis''. He is regularly invited to give courses and conferences at various institutions and universities of the five different continents on the major themes for which he has become well known: Islam, philosophy, metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, spirituality, religion, science, ecology, literature, art, etc. His works have been translated into twenty-eight different languages.


Notable aspects of his works

Nasr's expertise encompasses traditional culture (wisdom, religion, philosophy, science and art), Western thought from antiquity to the present day, and the history of science. He argues in favor of
revelation Revelation, or divine revelation, is the disclosing of some form of Religious views on truth, truth or Knowledge#Religion, knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities in the view of religion and t ...
,
tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...
, and what he considers ''" scientia sacra"'', in opposition to
rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...
,
relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...
, and modern western
materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
. Nasr has not developed a new system of thought, but instead hopes to revive traditional doctrines that he believes have been forgotten in the modern world. He is content to recall what, according to him, corresponds to the many manifestations of a timeless wisdom. Although
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
and
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
are present throughout his writings, his universalist perspective, which is that of
perennial philosophy The perennial philosophy (), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a school of thought in philosophy and spirituality that posits that the recurrence of common themes across world religions illuminates universal truths about ...
, takes into account what he assumes to be the common essence of all orthodox religions beyond their formal particularities or their current state: "My philosophical world is a kind of synthesis between the perennial philosophy, which I espouse and represent, and the Islamic philosophical tradition, which I have tried to revive and to which I also belong. And so I would say that for the first category, there are Guénon and Schuon; if I had to name a third person, then Coomaraswamy; and for the second category,
Ibn Sina Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...
, Suhrawardı,
Ibn Arabi Ibn Arabi (July 1165–November 1240) was an Andalusian Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest com ...
, and
Mulla Sadra Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā (; ; c. 1571/2 – c. 1635/40 CE / 980 – 1050 AH), was a Persians, Persian Twelver Shi'a, Shi'i Islamic philosophy, Islamic mystic, philosopher, Kalam, theologian, a ...
." According to Sarah Robinson-Bertoni, Nasr is one of the principal figures in Islamic philosophy, working at the crossroads of Western and Islamic intellectual traditions. Harry Oldmeadow considers Nasr to be "of the living traditionalists the most widely known in academic circles". For him, Nasr's works are characterized by "rigorous scholarly methodology, an encyclopedic erudition about all matters Islamic, a robustness of critical thought, and a sustained clarity of expression"; and he is "the foremost traditionalist thinker" to base himself on "eternal wisdom (''sophia perennis'')" in order to provide a solution to the contemporary environmental crisis.


Perennialist or Traditionalist school

When he discovered the writings of the most influential members of what would become the Traditionalist or Perennialist school (
René Guénon René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as Abdalwahid Yahia (; ), was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esoterici ...
, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings), the student Nasr fully aligned himself to their perspective founded on the '' philosophia perennis''. Thus, in the middle of a "materialistic century", this School provides Nasr with the keys to his spiritual quest: an esoteric doctrine and method within the framework of a Sufi path. For Patrick Laude: For Nasr, the expression "''philosophia perennis''", as understood by the Perennialist school, refers to both the universal metaphysical truth and to its spiritual realization. The latter can only be considered, according to Nasr, in the framework of a tradition, thus with the aid of a method, rites, symbols and other means sanctified by revelation. The truth, though veiled, is innate to the human spirit and its realization leads to what he calls "knowledge", that is to say gnosis or wisdom (''sophia''), hence the expression "''sophia perennis''", common ground at the heart of all religions. Nasr clarifies that the notion of the ''philosophia perennis'' does not derive from a compilation "of wisdom writings of various historical traditions", which would have resulted in the conviction of the existence of common truths, but it is these very truths which, by "the practice of intellection, the use of the intellect" understood in a spiritual manner, are revealed to the human spirit which then observes "their presence in other times and climes and in fact in all the sacred traditions the world over". The language of the perennial philosophy is symbolism.


God and the world

According to Nasr, the "Divine Reality" includes, metaphysically speaking, an "Impersonal Essence" and a personal aspect that the believer "ordinarily identifies with God", in accordance with the perspective of "most religions". Only the "esoteric dimension" within these religions take into account the "Impersonal Essence", as can be seen most notably in "the
Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...
,
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
, and among many Christian mystics such as
Meister Eckhart Eckhart von Hochheim ( – ), commonly known as Meister Eckhart (), Master Eckhart or Eckehart, claimed original name Johannes Eckhart,
and
Angelus Silesius Angelus Silesius, Order of Friars Minor, OFM (9 July 1677), born Johann Scheffler, was a German Roman Catholicism, Catholic priest, physician, Mysticism, mystic and Christian poetry, religious poet. Born and raised a Lutheranism, Lutheran, he be ...
". "God as ultimate Reality" is thus at the same time "Essence" and "Person" or "Supra-Being and Being". Understood in this way, God or the Principle, God is not only "Absolute and Infinite", he is also "the Supreme Good or Perfection". Now, according to Nasr, the specificity of infinitude and of good ''in divinis'' requires that they exteriorize themselves, that is to say, that they manifest themselves in multiplicity, hence the world. A world that is imperfect despite the perfection of its source because, as Nasr explains, this exteriorization implies a distance from the "Good", hence the presence of evil; the latter, contrary to the good, does not have its root in God. This "imperfect world" – the visible and tangible world of man – constitutes only the periphery of a hierarchy of increasingly subtle "worlds" according to their degree of proximity to Being. For Nasr, God is the only reality, and the world, which participates in his reality is therefore "unreal", not as "nothingness pure and simple" but as "relative reality"; it is an illusion to consider the world, says Nasr, as "reality" in the same way as the Principle. Nasr holds that traditional wisdom or the ''sophia perennis'' "has always seen God as Reality and the world as a dream from which the sage awakens through piritualrealization ... and the ordinary man through death". To consider the world as "the reality ... as is done by most modern philosophy ... leads to nihilism and skepticism by reducing God to an abstraction, to the 'unreal', and philosophy itself to the discussion of more or less secondary questions or to providing clever answers to ill-posed problems". For Nasr, "Ultimate Reality" is at once "above everything" and "omnipresent" in the universe, "transcendent and immanent". On the human plane, still according to Nasr, "The Reality" – or "The Truth" – lies in the heart of man "created in the image of God", whence the possibility of a "unitive knowledge which sees the world not as separative creation but as manifestation that is united through symbols and the very ray of existence".


Human nature and its relationship to the divine

"The key to the understanding of the ''anthrōpos''", according to Nasr, is situated in "sapential teachings"; it is neither situated in "exoteric religious formulations", which relate essentially to "salvation", nor in what he considers to be "profane" science, generally
evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
ary. Beyond his faith in " creationism ''ex nihilo''" Nasr believes that the doctrines "of all traditions" attest that "the genesis of man, occurred in many stages: first, in the Divinity Itself so that there is an uncreated 'aspect' to man", hence the possibility of "supreme union"; then "in the Logos which is in fact the prototype of man and another face of that same reality which the Muslims call the Universal Man and which each tradition identifies with its founder"; after this, "man is created on the cosmic level and what the Bible refers to as the celestial paradise where he is dressed with a luminous body"; "he then descends to the level of the terrestrial paradise and is given yet another body of an ethereal and incorruptible nature"; finally, "he is born into the physical world with a body which perishes" but he principially remains a reflection of "the Absolute not only in his spiritual and mental faculties but even in his body". Thus, Nasr rejects biology's modern evolutionary synthesis, which he thinks is a "desperate attempt to substitute a set of horizontal, material causes in a unidimensional world to explain effects whose causes belong to other levels of reality". For Nasr, in accordance with "the traditional view of the ''anthrōpos''", the human being is a "bridge between Heaven and earth (''pontifex'')". Responsible to God for his actions, he is the custodian and protector of the earth, "on the condition that he remain faithful to himself as the central terrestrial figure created in the 'form of God' ... living in this world but created for eternity". This aspect of humanity, for Nasr, "is reflected in all of his being and his faculties". Among these faculties, Nasr underlines the primacy of intelligence, sentiments, and will: "as a theomorphic being", his intelligence "can know the truth as such", his sentiments "are capable ... of reaching out for the ultimate through love, suffering, sacrifice, and also fear", and his will "is free to choose ... it reflects the Divine Freedom". But, "because of man's separation from his original perfection", a consequence "of what Christianity calls the fall", itself followed by further declines, these faculties no longer operate invariably according to their "theomorphic nature". Thus, "intelligence can become reduced to mental play", "sentiments can deteriorate to little more than gravitation around that illusory coagulation which ..is the ego" and "the will can be debased to nothing other than the urge to do that which removes man from the source of his own being". "All traditional sciences of nature ... are also sciences of the self on the basis of the microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence", therefore by virtue of an "inward link that binds man as the microcosm to the cosmos". This ideal man, underlines Nasr, is "primordial man ... perfect ... plenary reflection of all those Divine Qualities", who knew everything "in God and through God".


Knowledge and the intellect

According to Nasr, "man contains within himself many levels of existence" that "the Western tradition" synthesises in the ternary "spirit, soul, and body (''pneuma'', ''psychē'', and ''hylē'' or ''spiritus'', ''anima'', and ''corpus''". "The human spirit is an extension and reflection of the Divine Spirit", it coincides with the "intellect" and "resides at the center of the spiritual heart" of the human being. Nasr always uses the word "intellect" in "its original sense of ''intellectus'' (''nous'')" and not "of reason (''ratio'')", which is only its "reflection" and which "is identified with the analytical functions of the mind"; "the intellect is the light of the sacred shining upon our minds". The intellect, which "is the root and the center of consciousness" is also "the source of inner illumination and intellection", which Nasr, following Guénon, also calls "intellectual intuition", and that implies an "illumination of the heart and the mind of man", making possible a "knowledge of an immediate and direct nature, ..tasted and experienced", which extends to "certain aspects of reality" up to "the Absolute Reality". The human intellect is "the subjective pole of the
Word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
or of the
Logos ''Logos'' (, ; ) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion (notably Logos (Christianity), Christianity); among its connotations is that of a rationality, rational form of discourse that relies on inducti ...
– the universal Intellect – by which all things were made and which constitutes the source of objective revelation, that is to say, formal and established religion". For Nasr, in the vast majority of cases, this "inner revelation", or intellection, cannot become operative except by virtue of an external revelation which provides an objective cadre for it and enables it to be spiritually efficacious", hence the necessity of faith and spiritual practices associated with the realization of the virtues, with the aid of the grace issuing from each revelation.
Huston Smith Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, ''The World's R ...
summarizes, in an analysis of Nasr's works, that Nasr contends it is "God who knows Himself" through man. For Nasr, indeed, "discrimination between the Real and the unreal terminates in the awareness of the nondual nature of the Real, the awareness which is the heart of gnosis and which represents not human knowledge but God's knowledge of Himself", consciousness which is at the same time "the goal of the path of knowledge and the essence of ''scientia sacra''". Nasr contends that this wisdom, which corresponds – beyond salvation -– to deliverance from the bonds of all limitation, "is present in the heart of all traditions", whether it be the Hindu
Vedanta ''Vedanta'' (; , ), also known as ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six orthodox (Āstika and nāstika, ''āstika'') traditions of Hindu philosophy and textual exegesis. The word ''Vedanta'' means 'conclusion of the Vedas', and encompa ...
,
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
, the Jewish
Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...
, the Christian metaphysics of an Eckhart or an Erigena, or
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
. It alone "is able to solve certain apparent contradictions and riddles in sacred texts".


Sacredness

Terry Moore, in his introduction to a long interview that Seyyed Hossein Nasr gave to the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, recalls that for Nasr, Still, according to Moore, it is this relationship with the sacred, through the channel of "Tradition" that anchors Seyyed Hossein Nasr's worldview. Nasr considers the sense of the sacred as inseparable from any spiritual quest. This sense emanates from the awareness of the eternal and immutable reality of the Divine, which is both transcendent and immanent to all universal manifestation, therefore also to the human being. The sacred manifests itself in "revelation, the sacred rites of various religions, spiritual and initiatory practices, sacred art, virgin nature", in fact everything that transmits "the presence of the Divine".


Metaphysics

For Nasr, true metaphysics – the ''scientia sacra'' –, which is the intellectual foundation of the Traditionalist School, "is the science of the Real; of the origin and the end of things; of the Absolute and in its light, the relative" and, as a corollary, of the degrees of existence. It is therefore: True metaphysics, underlines Nasr, can only be assimilated by intellectual intuition, that is to say that it is necessarily associated with a path of spiritual realization, an approach foreign to modern philosophy, which has been instrumental in reducing the significance of metaphysics to just another mental activity. Metaphysical knowledge stems from the true understanding of symbolism.


Religion and spirituality

According to Nasr, man is "a theomorphic being living in this world but created for eternity" because his "soul is immortal". The ''post-mortem'' salvation of the soul, reminds Nasr, is "the first duty of man", according to every religion, – a soul tainted here below by its "centrifugal tendencies", its "passions". Nasr contends that all religions have an origin in God, reveal the paths which "leads to either felicity in the hereafter or damnation, to the paradisal or infernal states", and require "faith". Each new "descent" of a revelation brings a particular "spiritual genius", "fresh vitality, uniqueness and the grace which make its rites and practices operative, not to speak of the paradisal vision which constitutes the origin of its sacred art or of the sapience which lies at the heart of its message". This wisdom, continues Nasr, accounts for the "Ultimate Reality", which is both "beyond everything and at the very heart and center of man's soul", that is to say in his "spirit". The quest for wisdom or knowledge, through "spiritual practice" and the "cultivation of virtues", can lead to "salvation in the highest sense of this term, which means total deliverance from the bonds of all limitations". Nasr argues that spirituality requires a constant practice and a rigorous discipline within the framework of a religion, and he considers the current commercialization of the "pseudo-spiritual" to be indicative of people wanting the spiritual result without the effort. Daoud Riffi emphasizes that
Sufism Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
is the spiritual path followed by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in a universalist framework which attests to the principial unity of all major religions. Nasr's Sufism relates to the intellect in its medieval sense, that is, the spiritual heart: "True knowledge is therefore a matter of the heart, not of the mind, and the fruit of an interior asceticism."


Exoterism and esoterism

Nasr says that every integral religion "possesses at once an external or exoteric dimension" and "an inner or esoteric dimension". The first is "concerned with the external and formal aspect of human life" with a view to the posthumous salvation of those "who follow the precepts" of their religion and who "have faith in its truths". The second concerns "the formless and the essential" with a view to the realization of "the Supreme Essence, here and now". These two dimensions unfold in "a hierarchy of levels from the most outward to the most inward which is the Supreme Center". Nasr thus distinguishes three modes of "approaching ultimate Reality": "the ways of work, love and knowledge", which correspond to as many predispositions of human nature. The most interiorizing paths integrate those which are less so, but the latter, not necessarily possessing the capacity "to understand what is beyond them", sometimes become the causes of "tensions" within the same religion. Nasr adds that "all human beings can be saved if only they follow religion according to their own nature and vocation". And he warns "on the social level, on the level of human action, the barriers and conditions established by the exoteric dimension of the religion should not be transgressed", including by those who "follow the path of esoterism, the inward or mystical path". Since there are "questions that exoterism cannot answer," it is important "for religion to keep alive the reality and the significance of esoterism for people who have the capability and need to understand the inner or esoteric dimension of the tradition". This is what Islam, for example, continues to accomplish today with its inner dimension, Sufism, which remains a living tradition. On the other hand,


Essential unity of religions

In a commentary on a work by Nasr, Adnan Aslan reports that for Nasr, the various religions are "forms of the eternal truth which has been revealed by God to humankind through various agencies". It is this common truth which constitutes "the transcendent unity of religions", he says, referring to the expression proposed by Frithjof Schuon. "It is only on the level of the Supreme Essence ... standing above all the cosmic sectors from the angelic to the physical within which a particular religion is operative, that the ultimate unity of religions is to be sought". This unity, for Nasr, is "not to be found at the level of external forms; ..religions do not simply say the same thing despite the remarkable unanimity of principles and doctrines and the profound similarity of applications of these principles". At the heart of every religion lies "what Schuon calls the ''religio perennis''", that is to say, "a doctrine concerning the nature of reality and a method for being able to attain what is Real". Doctrine and method vary from one religion to another but their essence and goal are universal. As a result, no religion is in itself "better" than another, concludes Nasr, since "all authentic religions come from the same Origin", but in practical terms it is nevertheless necessary "to distinguish the possibilities" that remain valid in the current state of "degradation" of each of the religions. For Nasr, given the celestial origin of all religions, it is appropriate to respect their slightest particularities and to treat them "with reverence, as every manifestation of the sacred should be".


Interreligious dialogue

According to Jane I. Smith, Nasr is "one of the most visible partners" of Islamic-Christian dialogue thanks to "his training in Christian theology and philosophy, combined with his remarkable knowledge of all Islamic sciences". Nasr points out that ordinary believers consider their religion to be ''the'' religion. Injunctions such as: "I am the way, the truth, the life" (
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
) or "No one sees God unless he has seen me" (
Mohammed Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, ...
), necessarily lead, for these same believers, to the certainty of the pre-eminence of their own religion, a conviction that could lead to the refusal to consider other religions as valid. This refusal, for Nasr, can be considered as legitimate since it stems from revelation, therefore from God; God wants to "save souls", he does not ask the believer to deal with "
comparative religion Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including human migration, migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study ...
" nor to accept the validity of other revelations. In a traditional world, such exclusivism presented no hindrance, but in today's world, the mixing of populations calls many believers to question the value of the religions they encounter daily. Religion as it is seen in the world, says Nasr, "comes from the wedding between a Divine Norm and a human collectivity destined providentially to receive the imprint of that Norm." Thus, "racial, ethnic and cultural differences" constitute "one of the causes for multiplicity" of religions, "but religion itself cannot be reduced to its terrestrial embodiment". For Nasr, there is only one truth and it necessarily manifests itself in "all the different authentic religious universes, otherwise God would not be merciful and just". But it is not, according to Nasr, the exoteric level, that of divergences, which allows access to a true understanding and acceptance of other religions; only esotericism, which transcends the formal dimensions of religions, allows, according to him, uncompromising adherence to the authenticity of all revelations, by recognizing in them a supra-formal unity which resolves these very differences. Nasr actively participates in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In 2008, he was the main Muslim speaker, opposite
Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, his resignation on 28 Februar ...
, at the first Catholic-Muslim Forum organized by the
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...
. For Nasr, "one of the reasons why it is so difficult to have a deep religious dialogue today" with Christians, is due – besides their conviction "that there is no salvation outside the Church" – to the absence of an "esoteric dimension, interior .. mystical", which centuries of secularism have stifled. For Islam, which is not "theologically threatened by the presence of other religions in the same way that Christianity is", the influence of secularism occurred much later than in the West, and Sufism, which is its interior dimension, continues to inspire "the most profound doctrines that have been formulated concerning the plurality of religions and the relationship between them". For Nasr, as Jahanbegloo emphasizes, dialogue is "not only a pursuit of truth, but also a challenge to spiritual responsibility" of each religion to try to "heal the wounds of the present-day secularized world" in which we live.


Tradition

In ''Knowledge and the Sacred'', Nasr defines tradition as follows: For Nasr, the tradition therefore presents two aspects: "one is truths that are of a transcendent order in their origin, that came from the Divine, from God", revealed at the birth of each of the great religions and, on the other hand, the transmission of these truths by these same religions and by the civilizations they have generated; tradition is therefore not limited to religion – this is its heart – but it is deployed in all areas of a culture, hence the names "traditional art, traditional sciences, traditional architecture, traditional music, traditional clothing, etc." Following
René Guénon René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as Abdalwahid Yahia (; ), was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esoterici ...
– to whom he is "indebted for clarifying this fundamental concept" –, Nasr refers to a "Primordial Tradition", which he defines as being the single truth from which emanate all truths, the immutable and timeless archetype from which all traditions originate. According to Nasr, at a time when Heaven and Earth were still "united", the original or archetypal man was directly enlightened, spiritually and intellectually, by the Primordial Tradition. The value of tradition, for Nasr, is not manifested by a simple nostalgia for the past, it stems from the wisdom that this tradition conveys, instructing the human being on his own nature and that of the world, and calling him to achieve his original perfection. Only the truths conveyed by tradition, continues Nasr, allow us to grasp the full scope of the errors of modern thought and its misdeeds on man and nature.


Ecology

It was in 1966, during the Rockefeller Foundation Lectures at the University of Chicago, that Seyyed Hossein Nasr, for the first time, made public the importance that he placed on nature and his concern for its degradation. He was one of the first philosophers to turn to this question and he is considered to be the founder of environmentalism in the Muslim world. In several works he deals with the causes of the mutilation of the planet and the restorative remedies. Causes Tarik Quadir argues that "the ecological crisis, for Nasr, is only an externalization of an inner malaise ..due in large part to the various applications of modern esternscience. ..Following the loss of the vision of the universe proper to medieval Christian worldview, ..this science ignores or denies the existence of any reality other than that of the material aspect of nature". Indeed, as Nasr explains, "the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and its aftermath ��witnessed the rise of a secular
humanism Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and Agency (philosophy), agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The me ...
and the absolutization of earthly man with immeasurable consequences for both the world of nature and traditional civilizations conquered by this new type of man, who gives free rein to his Promethean ambition to dominate nature and its forces in order to gain wealth or to conquer others civilizations, or both. ..Nature, more than a lifeless mass, has thus become a machine to be dominated and manipulated by a purely earthly man". Thus, it is "to modernism and its false presumptions about the nature of man and the world", that Nasr attributes "the destruction of the natural environment", in addition to "the disintegration of the social fabric", and he deplores that all States, "from monarchies to communist governments, to revolutionary regimes, ��all want to copy avidly Western science and technology, without thought of their cultural, social and environmental consequences". Nasr believes that another cause of ecological problems is found in
scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
, that is, the conviction that "modern science provides if not the only, at least the most reliable means to true knowledge" and that it leads thereby "to human progress", as imagined by those who evaluate a human society solely in terms of its economic growth. Nasr corroborates the observation that the development of the current economic system rests largely on human passions, which it feeds in its turn, thus generating a continuous blossoming of new needs which, in reality, are only desires. Finally, "if modern man destroys nature with such impunity, it is because he looks upon it as a mere economic resource". Remedies Quadir maintains that for Nasr, it is not by technology that environmental problems can be solved in the long term, being themselves the consequence of this technology. According to Nasr, the critique of the extraordinary technological development is certainly necessary, but the real critique must start with the root of the problem, i.e. with oneself, because in a desacralized West, few are aware of what Nasr considers the raison d'être of human life and of nature. This consciousness, for Nasr, is present in the wisdom of the various religious traditions, "as well as in their cosmologies and sacred sciences". And it alone makes it possible to rediscover "the sense of the sacred", in particular with regard to nature,because deprived of this sense, the human being remains immersed in the ephemeral, abandoning himself to his own lower nature, with an illusory feeling of freedom. As a consequence, the philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo argues that Nasr's goal "is to negate the totalitarian claims of modern science and to reopen the way to the religious view of the order of nature, developed over centuries in the cosmologies and sacred sciences of the great traditions". "Once the awareness comes of what really nature is, warns Nasr, that nature is not just an 'it', that it is a living reality and has a sacred content, that it has an inner relation with our own inner being, ..that we cannot destroy nature without destroying ourselves. .. then we will begin to respect her" and, consequently, the dominant technology will initiate a reconversion. Realizing then, by this interior transformation, that true happiness is not linked to consumption, the human being will recognize his "real and not imagined needs", the only solution to slow down the uncontrolled appetite which leads to the daily rape of the planet.


Critique of modernism

Nasr says that it was in the Renaissance in the West (14th–16th centuries) that the "modernist" or reductive vision of the human condition and the universe began to take shape, and spread to other continents during the past two centuries. This ideology is characterized by "the rejection of the theocentric view of reality", hence an absolutization of the human to the detriment of the Divine, but of a human denying his "pontifical nature", therefore reduced "to his rational and animal aspects, anderingin a desacralized wasteland, oblivious to his origin" and living only at the periphery of his being and of the universe. Nasr considers that after the Renaissance, faith no longer had the monolithic cohesion of the Middle Ages. The "new man" is no longer defined by "his celestial archetype and his Edenic perfection", nor by his "symbolic and contemplative spirit", but by his "individuality, reason, the senses, corporeality nd hissubjectivism". Nasr contends that this marked the beginning of the ever increasing secularization of man and of knowledge, which, step by step, lead the West to
skepticism Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
,
relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assess ...
,
individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and a ...
,
materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
,
progressivism Progressivism is a Left-right political spectrum, left-leaning political philosophy and Reformism, reform political movement, movement that seeks to advance the human condition through social reform. Adherents hold that progressivism has unive ...
,
evolutionism Evolutionism is a term used (often derogatorily) to denote the theory of evolution. Its exact meaning has changed over time as the study of evolution has progressed. In the 19th century, it was used to describe the belief that organisms deliberat ...
,
historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...
,
scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...
,
agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer t ...
,
atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
and, ultimately, what he considers the present chaos. According to Nasr, given that the wisdom conveyed by the various traditional civilizations finds its origin in a divine revelation, these civilizations have always transmitted a fair representation of man and his purpose. Thus, as Joseph E. B. Lumbard notes, for Nasr, "only tradition can provide the weapon necessary to carry out the vital battle for the preservation of the things of the spirit in a world which would completely devour man as a spiritual being if it could". According to Nasr:


Theory of evolution

Professor Judy D. Saltzman recalls in an article dedicated to Nasr, that the vast majority of post-Darwinian scientists claim that life appeared after matter, while for Nasr no inert matter can transform into living matter in the absence of a pre-existing life energy, just as it is impossible, according to mathematical theory of information, to extract more information from a system than it contains. For Nasr, "life comes before matter, the subtle world before life, the Spirit before the subtle world, and the Ultimate Reality before everything else". For Nasr, the results of modern scientific investigation of nature are defined by the "oblivion of intellect" and, thus, are "severed from Divinity and highly compartmentalized". He maintains that the scientific explanations for the origins of the natural world are " purely physical" and "aimed at reducing man to matter while excluding divinity and
teleology Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
from nature". On this basis, Nasr rejects the
theory of evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...
, claiming that it is "an ideology, it is not ordinary science," that it is "more a pseudo-religion than a scientific theory," that it "requires more faith than is claimed by any religion for its founder or even for God," and that evolution is both metaphysically and logically impossible. The sociologist Farzin Vahdat sees this as part of Nasr's relativization of secular reason and secular science, and more broadly of his criticism of the modern mentality. Marietta Stepaniants observes that, for Nasr, "the absurdity of that theory" is that it offers only "horizontal and material causes in a unidimensional world, to explain effects whose causes belong to other levels of reality". As an alternative, Nasr defends his vision of an Islamic
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...
that accepts "limited biological changes" occurring throughout time, but rejects the idea that solely natural mechanisms account for what he calls "creativity". He contends that
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...
is a " materialist philosophy" rather than a "real science with a true empirical foundation" and contrasts a
Darwinian ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...
vision of life with his God-centered perspective of nature based in the traditional Islamic understanding of life and creation. Nasr contends that
evolutionism Evolutionism is a term used (often derogatorily) to denote the theory of evolution. Its exact meaning has changed over time as the study of evolution has progressed. In the 19th century, it was used to describe the belief that organisms deliberat ...
is one of the cornerstones of the contemporary worldview and has contributed directly to the modern world's degradation of the spiritual significance and sacredness of God's creation, as stated in "sacred scriptures" such as the
Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
, the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
or the
Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...
. For Nasr, the modern scientific world is incapable of conceiving that each species emanates from the "immutable world of archetypes", – a subtle world beyond the material world –, by "crystallizing" on earth at "a particular moment in the history of the material cosmos", in accordance to the divine "will". The human being, for example, appeared on earth as a human being.


Philosophy

Commenting on an article that Muhammad Suheyl Umar dedicated to him, Nasr speaks of his own "philosophical position": For Nasr, the true "love of wisdom" (''philosophia'') was shared by all civilizations until the emergence, in the West, of a thought which dissociated itself more and more from the spiritual dimension as a result of the occultation of the sapiential core of religion and the divorce of philosophical intelligence from faith. Apart from the case of certain Greek currents such as sophistry and
skepticism Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
, as well as the episode of
nominalism In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are two main versions of nominalism. One denies the existence of universals—that which can be inst ...
towards the end of the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, it was really during the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
, continues Nasr, that "the separation of philosophy and of revelation" began, despite the maintenance in certain isolated circles of a true spirituality. With the development of individualism and the emergence of rationalism and skepticism, only the purely human faculties – reason and the senses – "determined knowledge, although faith in God still persisted to a certain extent", but that was not enough to hold back "the progressive desacralization of knowledge which characterizes European intellectual history" from this period on and which "led to the completely profane philosophy of today". However, "the very separation of knowledge from being, which lies at the heart of the crisis of modern man is avoided in the Oriental traditions, which consider legitimate only that form of knowledge that can transform the being of the knower". Adnan Aslan notes a passage from Nasr in which he endorses
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
's commentary in the ''
Phaedo ''Phaedo'' (; , ''Phaidōn'') is a dialogue written by Plato, in which Socrates discusses the immortality of the soul and the nature of the afterlife with his friends in the hours leading up to his death. Socrates explores various arguments fo ...
'', which equates philosophy with "the practice of death"; this death, for Nasr, corresponds to the extinction of the "I", a necessary stage for the realization of the "Self" or of the "Truth". Several works by Nasr support critical analyzes of those he considers to be engines of modern deviation: Descartes,
Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as ...
, F. Bacon,
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
, Hume,
Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...
,
Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
, Comte, Darwin,
Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, Freud, Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin and others. In addition, his writings abundantly cite those who, for him, convey authentic wisdom:
Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos (;  BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath, and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of P ...
,
Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
,
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
,
Plotinus Plotinus (; , ''Plōtînos'';  – 270 CE) was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius ...
,
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...
, Shankara, Erigena,
Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...
, al-Bīrūnī, Suhrawardī, Ibn Arabī, Rūmī,
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...
, Eckhart,
Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
, Mullā Sadrā, Guénon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, Burckhardt, Lings, etc.


Scientism

Patrick Laude submits that Nasr is "the only foremost perennialist writer to have received an intensive and advanced academic training in modern sciences" while Joseph E. B. Lumbard contends that "as a trained scientist", Nasr is well suited to argue about the relationship between religion and science. Summarizing Nasr's thought, Lucian W. Stone, Jr. writes in '' The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers'': "According to Nasr, while the traditional sciences – which include biology, cosmology, medicine, philosophy, metaphysics, and so on –, understood the natural phenomena and humanity as ''vestigia Dei'' (signs of God), modern science has severed the universe, including humans, from God. The natural world or cosmos has a meaning beyond itself, one of which modern secular science is intentionally ignorant". Nasr argues that historically Western science is "inextricably linked to Islamic science and before it to the Greco-Alexandrian, Indian, ancient Iranian as well as Mesopotamian and Egyptian sciences". Denying this heritage, the Renaissance already – despite some resistance –, but especially the 17th century ( Descartes,
Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...
,
Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of p ...
, Newton), imposed new paradigms in accordance with the ambient anthropocentrism and rationalism, and with the secularization of the cosmos, which have resulted in a "unilateral and monolithic science, ..bound to a single level of reality .. a profoundly terrestrial and externalized science". While not denying the prowess "of a science limited to the physical dimension of reality", Nasr nonetheless argues that "alternative worldviews drawn from traditional doctrines remain constantly aware of the inner nexus which binds physical nature to the realm of Spirit, and the outward face of things to an inner reality which they at once veil and reveal". For the traditional sciences of all civilizations, the universe is formed by a hierarchy of degrees, the most "external" or "lowest" degree being the physical world, the only one that modern science recognizes; this lower degree reflects the higher degrees of the universe "by means of symbols which have remained an ever open gate towards the Invisible". Nasr speaks of "certain intuitions and discoveries" of contemporary scientists, "which reveal the Divine Origin of the natural world", a deduction that scientism does not want to admit, "the scientific philosophers are much more dogmatic than many scientists in denying any metaphysical significance to the discoveries of science". Scientism presents "modern science not as a particular way of knowing nature, but as a complete and totalitarian philosophy which reduces all reality to the physical domain and does not wish under any condition to accept the possibility of the existence of non-scientistic worldviews". However, Nasr notes, a large number of eminent physicists "have often been the first to deny scientism and even the so-called scientific method .. seeking to go beyond the scientific reductionism which has played such a great role in the desacralization of nature and of knowledge itself". According to Lumbard, Nasr considers that:


Art

In his reflections on art, Seyyed Hossein Nasr bases himself on "the traditional perspective which is by nature meta-historic and perennial". For him, all art "must convey the truth and beauty" and "a meaning that is ultimately universal" because it is independent of "the ego of the individual artist". He cites as examples the traditional art, "whether it be Persian and Arabic in the Islamic world, Japanese and Chinese in the Far East, Hindu and Buddhist in the Indian world, medieval Christian in the West", as well as the arts of the "primal people of the Americas, Australia and Africa, who in a sense, belong to one family". "That art is the reflection of a
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
nic paradigm, idea, or archetype, in the Platonic sense, in the world of physical forms." Thus, in traditional art, specifies Nasr, the artist "is an instrument for the expression of certain symbols, of certain ideas, ..which are beyond the individual and are executed artistically through traditional techniques" because they belong to the "spiritual world"; "this is where the great difference between traditional and modern art comes from". An art is considered traditional "not because of its subject matter but because of its conformity to cosmic laws of forms, to the laws of symbolism, to the formal genius of the particular spiritual universe in which it has been created, its hieratic style, its conformity to the nature of the material used, and, finally, its conformity to the truth" as expressed by the religious milieu from which it comes. As for sacred art, "which lies at the heart of traditional art ithas a sacramental function and is, like religion itself, at once truth and presence"; it "involves the ritual and cultic practices and practical and operative aspects of the paths of spiritual realization". In a traditional society, says Nasr, one does not distinguish between sacred art and religious art but "in the post-medieval West and also outside of the Western world since the 19th century, in fact wherever you already have had the decadence of the traditional arts", religious art is characterized only by its subject, at the expense of "its means of execution and its upra-individualsymbolism" which "belong to the suprahuman realm". Today "much of what is called religious art is no longer traditional but individualistic and psychological." For Nasr, the degeneration of Western art since the Renaissance is the consequence of a "view of man as a purely secular and earthly being". From symbolic as it was, art became more and more naturalistic, as can be seen, for example, by comparing the sculptures of
Chartres Cathedral Chartres Cathedral (, lit. Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres) is a Catholic cathedral in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the List of bishops of Chartres, Bishop of Chartres. Dedicated in honour of the Virgin Mary ( ...
to those of
Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
, or paintings of the
Virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...
by
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
to those of the Middle Ages. But, tired of indefinitely reproducing beings and objects deprived of life, naturalism faded in the second half of the 19th century in front of "this new very ingenious wave of impressionist art which tries to capture some of the qualities of nature ��using light and colors .. without simply emulating the external forms of nature". This movement, however, was only a "transient phase, and soon the whole world of form broke down from below, ..starting with
Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
and continuing to our own day". The "cracks in the confines of the solidified mindset created by centuries of humanism, rationalism and empiricism" have opened access to the most "inferior" influences. According to Nasr, most modern artists "become completely enmeshed in their own egos .. leading lives which are in many cases not morally disciplined, whereas the traditional perspective", on the contrary, "seeks to free us through spiritual discipline ..destroying the stranglehold that the lower ego has upon our immortal soul". The traditional artist "does not try to express his own feelings and ideas", as the modern artist does; "
Art for art's sake Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of (), a French slogan from the latter half of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that 'true' art is utterly independent of all social values and utilitarian functions, b ...
" is not his credo, nor is "innovation, originality and creativity" because, unlike the modern artist, he knows that art has as its goal "the attainment of inner perfection and ..human need in the deepest sense .. which are spiritual", intimately linked to "beauty and the truth." "All beauty", writes Nasr, "is a reflection of Divine Beauty and can lead to the Source of that reflection"; but the contemporary rubs shoulders with "ugliness, unaware that the need for beauty is as profound in the human being as the ..air that we breathe". For Nasr, there are artists in the present day, rooted in a true spirituality and who express it or attempt to express it in their art, with the humility demanded by "light of the truth and the millennial heritage of traditional art, most of which was produced ��by anonymous artists who humbled themselves before the reality of the Spirit and through their transparency were able to reflect the light of the spiritual world in their works".


Awards and honors

*In 2000, a volume was devoted to him in the Library of Living Philosophers. * Templeton Religion and Science Award (1999) * First Muslim and first non-Western scholar to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures. * Honorary Doctor from the Faculty of Theology of
Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...
, Sweden (1977) * In 1977, ''La Perse, pont de Turquoise'' ('Persia, the turquoise bridge'), which he co-authored with Roloff Beny won the Prix Charles Blanc of the
Académie Française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
.


Works

Nasr is the author of over fifty books and five hundred articles (a number of which can be found in the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion
Seyyed Hossein Nasr Author Page
on topics such as Traditionalist metaphysics, Islamic science, religion and the environment, Sufism, and Islamic philosophy. He has written works in Persian, English, French,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and Indonesian. Listed below are most of Nasr's works in English (in chronological order), including translations, edited volumes, and
Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
en in his honor: ;As author * '' An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for Its Study by the Ikhwan al-Safa, al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina'' (1964) * '' Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna—Suhrawardi—Ibn Arabi'' (1964) * '' Ideals and Realities of Islam'' (1966) * '' Science and Civilization in Islam'', with a preface by Giorgio de Santillana (1968) * ''Islamic Studies: Essays on Law and Society, the Sciences, and Philosophy and Sufism'' (1967) * '' The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man'' (1968) * ''Sufi Essays'' (1972) * ''Islam and the Plight of Modern Man'' (1975) * ''Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study'', with photographs by Roland Michaud (1976) * ''Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy: Background, Life and Works'', 2nd edition (1977) * Downloa
KNOWLEDGE AND THE SACRED
* ''Islamic Life and Thought'' (1981) * ''Islamic Art and Spirituality'' (1986) * '' Traditional Islam in the Modern World'' (1987) * * '' A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World'' (1993) * * ''The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia'', edited by Mehdi Aminrazavi (1994) * ''Muhammad: Man of God'' (1995) * * ''Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization'' (2001) * '' The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity'' (200
, Free Download
* '' Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy'' (2006) * * * '' Islam in the Modern World'' (2012) ;Poetry * ''Poems of the Way''; put to music by Sami Yusuf in ''Songs of the Way (vol. 1)'' (1999) * ''The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi: Poems and Translations'' (2007) ;As editor * ''An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science'', edited with William Chittick and Peter Zirnis (3 vols., 1975) * ''Isma'ili Contributions to Islamic Culture'' (1977) * ''The Essential Frithjof Schuon'' (1986) * ''Shi'ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality'', edited with Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr and
Hamid Dabashi Hamid Dabashi (; born 1951) is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City. He is the author of over twenty books. Among them are ''Theology of Discontent'', several books ...
(1988) * '' Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History'', edited with Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr and Hamid Dabashi (1989) * ''Islamic Spirituality'' (Vol. 1: Foundations, 1987; Vol. 2: Manifestations, 1990) * ''Religion of the Heart: Essays Presented to Frithjof Schuon on his Eightieth Birthday'', edited with William Stoddart (1991) * ''In Quest of the Sacred: The Modern World in the Light of Tradition,'' edited with Katherine O'Brien (1994) * ''History of Islamic Philosophy'', edited with
Oliver Leaman Oliver Leaman (born 1950) is an American professor of philosophy and Zantker Professor of Judaic studies at the University of Kentucky, where he has been teaching since 2000. He specialized in the history of Islamic, Jewish, and Eastern philoso ...
(1995) * ''Mecca the Blessed, Medina the Radiant: The Holiest Cities of Islam'', photographs by Kazuyoshi Nomachi; essay by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1997) * ''An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia'', edited with Mehdi Aminrazavi (5 vols., 1st in 1999) * ''The Essential Sophia'', edited with Katherine O'Brien (2006) * ''
The Study Quran ''The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary'' (TSQ) is a 2015 English-language edition of the Quran edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and published by HarperOne. Fellow Muslims Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli and Maria Massi Dakake, prepared t ...
'' (Editor-in-Chief); Caner Dagli, Maria Dakake, and Joseph Lumbard (General editors); Mohammed Rustom (Assistant editor) (2015) ;As translator * ''Shi'ite Islam'' by Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i * ''The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations'' by Mulla Sadra (edited, introduced, and annotated by Ibrahim Kalin) ;Works about Nasr * ''The Works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr Through His Fortieth Birthday'', edited by
William Chittick William Clark Chittick (born June 29, 1943) is an American philosopher, writer, translator, and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively ...
* ''Knowledge is Light: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr'', edited by Zailan Moris * ''Beacon of Knowledge – Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr'', edited by Mohammad Faghfoory * ''Islam, Modernity, and the Human Sciences'' (second part of the book), by Ali Zaidi * ''Religious Pluralism in Christian and Islamic Philosophy: The Thought of John Hick and Seyyed Hossein Nasr'', by Adnan Aslan * ''From the Pen of Seyyed Hossein Nasr: A Bibliography of His Works Through His Eightieth Year'', edited by Nicholas Boylston, Oludamini Ogunnaike, and Syed A.H. Zaidi * ''Islam and Modernity: Dissecting the Thought of Seyyed Hossein Nasr: A Discourse on the Compatibility or Incompatibility of Islam with Modernity'' (Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011) by Musa Yusuf Owoyemi * Thinking Between Islam and the West: The Thoughts of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Bassam Tibi and Tariq Ramadan by Chi-chung (Andy) Yu * ''Traditional Islamic Environmentalism: The Vision of Seyyed Hossein Nasr'' (University Press of America, 2013) by Tarik M. Quadir ;Interviews Books * * * Articles * * * * * . * * * * * * * *


See also


Notes


References

;Bibliography * * * * * * * This work is a bibliography of Seyyed Hossein Nasr from 1961 to 2014 including translation of his works in 28 languages. (From the publisher.) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Faculty page
at Columbian College of Arts & Sciences
Google Scholar Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 20th-century American educators 20th-century American philosophers 20th-century Iranian educators 20th-century Iranian philosophers 20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam 21st-century American educators 21st-century American philosophers 21st-century Iranian educators 21st-century Iranian philosophers 21st-century Muslim scholars of Islam 1933 births Academics from Tehran Academics of Iranian descent Academics of the University of Edinburgh American esotericists American Islamic studies scholars American Shia Muslims American Sufis American writers of Iranian descent Chancellors of the Sharif University of Technology Columbian College of Arts and Sciences faculty Commentators on Aristotle Exiles of the Iranian Revolution in the United States Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Iranian emigrants to the United States Iranian expatriate academics in the United States Iranian historians of Islam Iranian Shia scholars of Islam Iranian Sufis Islamic environmentalists Islamic philosophers Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Muslim creationists Muslim scholars of Islamic studies Peddie School alumni People from Tehran Scholars of Sufism Seyyed Hossein Nasr Supporters of Ibn Arabi Traditionalist School