Robert G. Morrison

Robert Morrison (born 1969) is a historian of science and American scholar of Islam. He is the George Lincoln Skolfield, Jr. Professor of Religion and Middle Eastern and North Studies, Chair of the Religion Department, Director of the Middle Eastern and North African Studies Program at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, U.S. where he has been since 2008. Morrison is the current president of The Commission on History of Science and Technology in Islamic Societies.

Biography Morrison received a bachelor's degree in the History of Science from Harvard University, Massachusetts. He then completed his doctorate at Columbia University New York, where he studied science (astronomy) in Islamic societies under the supervision of George Saliba. He was awarded the World Prize for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Islamic Studies in 2009, for his book Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din Al-Nisaburi (2007). In 2018, Morrison was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for research on the Jewish scholarly intermediaries between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Italy. In 2019, Morrison was a Distinguished Visitor at UC Berkeley.

His recent book, The Light of the World: Astronomy in al-Andalus studied scientific theories which were produced in Andalusia in 1400, and traveled first to the Ottoman court and then to the University of Padua, Italy. His research has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and by fellowships at the Stanford Humanities Center and the National Humanities Center.

Research

Morrison's doctoral research uncovered the scientific contributions of Nisaburi. Nisaburi was a scholar of religious sciences and astronomy and was influenced by influential scholars Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi. His doctoral research addressed the historical interactions between Islam and science.

The main thrust of Morrison's research has been the connection between the scientific culture of the Ottoman Empire and the science of the Renaissance. His work elucidates the connections between Islamic astronomy and Copernican astronomy. In a 2018 interview, he stated "what I’m doing is finding organic connections between the two worlds."

Personal life Morrison currently resides with his family in Maine, U.S.