Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Wilfred Cantwell Smith OC FRSC[15] (July 21, 1916 – February 7, 2000) was a Canadian Islamicist, comparative religion scholar,[16] and Presbyterian minister.[17] He was the founder of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Quebec and later the director of Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions. The Harvard University Gazette said he was one of the field's most influential figures of the past century.[18] In his 1962 work The Meaning and End of Religion he notably questioned the modern sectarian concept of religion.[19]
Wilfred Cantwell Smith
W. C. Smith[1]
Christianity (Presbyterian)
1944[3]
The Azhar Journal: Analysis and Critique[5] (1948)
The Meaning and End of Religion (1961)
Early life and career[edit]
Smith was born on 21 July 1916 in Toronto, Ontario, to parents Victor Arnold Smith and Sarah Cory Cantwell.[20] He was the younger brother of Arnold Smith[21] and the father of Brian Cantwell Smith.[2] He primarily received his secondary education at Upper Canada College.[6]
Smith studied at University College, Toronto,[22] receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours in oriental languages circa 1938.[23] After his thesis was rejected by the University of Cambridge,[24] supposedly for its Marxist critique of the British Raj, he and his wife Muriel Mackenzie Struthers spent seven years in pre-independence India (1940–1946), during which he taught Indian and Islamic history at Forman Christian College in Lahore.
In 1948 he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in oriental languages at Princeton University, after which he taught at McGill, founding in 1952 the university's Institute of Islamic Studies.[3] From 1964 to 1973 Smith taught at Harvard Divinity School.[25] He left Harvard for Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he founded the Department of Religion.[25] He was also among the original editorial advisors of the scholarly journal Dionysius. In 1978 he returned to Harvard.[25] In 1979 he received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University.[26] After his retirement from Harvard in 1984,[25] he was appointed a senior research associate in the Faculty of Divinity at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in 1985.[27]
Death and legacy[edit]
Smith died on 7 February 2000 in Toronto.[17] His papers are preserved in Special Collections and Archives at the University Library at California State University, Northridge.[28]