This is the first work to address the legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916–2000), whose intellectual and institutional contributions helped shape the field of religious studies in the latter half of the twentieth century. As a young scholar, Smith taught Indian and Islamic history in Lahore for several years and witnessed the partition of India. Upon his return to North America, he obtained his Ph D at Princeton University before embarking upon a long and distinguished career. He founded the Institute of Islamic Studies at Mc Gill University and served as director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Smith emphasized the place of the scholarly study of Islam in the Western academy long before Islam occupied its current position at the center of global politics, challenged the notion of monolithic world religions, and argued for the importance of dialogical processes and a personalist approach to the study of religion. Contributors to this volume, many of whom were Smith’s students, provide a wide-ranging exploration of his influence and legacy.
Table of Content
Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and
Arvind Sharma
Introduction
Diana L. Eck
Religious Studies—The Academic and Moral Challenge: Personal Reflections on the Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith
John B. Carman
Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Academic Architect
Purushottama Bilimoria
The Meaningful “End” of God, Faith, and Scripture
Thomas B. Coburn
Anticipating the Emergence of “Contemplative Studies”: Reflections on the Work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Harvey Cox
Faith and Belief Revisited
William A. Graham
Wilfred Cantwell Smith and “Orientalism”
John Stratton Hawley
Enabling Antinomies: Tensions and Tensile Strength in Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Jonathan R. Herman
Who Cares If the Qur’an Is the Word of God? W. C. Smith’s Charge to the Aspiring Public Intellectual
Amir Hussain
Towards a Hermeneutic of Humanity: Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the Study of Muslims
Sheila Mc Donough
Wilfred Cantwell Smith in Lahore 1940–1951
Robert A. Segal
Diagnosis Rather than Dialogue as the Best Way to Study Religion
Peter Slater
Wilfred Smith’s Prophetic Sense of History and Proposal Regarding Verification
K. R. Sundararajan
Study of Religion as Study of Religious Persons
Donald K. Swearer
The Moral Imagination of Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Wilfred Cantwell Smith: A Bibliography
Contributors
Index
About the author
Ellen Aitken (1961–2014) was the Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies at Mc Gill University.
Arvind Sharma is Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at Mc Gill University and the author of many books, including
One Religion Too Many: The Religiously Comparative Reflections of a Comparatively Religious Hindu;
Hinduism as a Missionary Religion; and
Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination, all also published by SUNY Press.
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