Wilfred Cantwell Smith was a major contributor to
interfaith dialogue and
field of comparative religion. He established an Institute of Islamic Studies
at McGill, where he was a professor from 1949-63. He then moved to
Harvard University to take up the directorship of the
Center for the Study
of World Religions which he had helped start. In 1973 he went to
Nova
Scotia to found the Department of Comparative Religion at
Dalhousie
University, and then returned to Harvard to oversee the creation of a
religion program within the faculty of arts and sciences. When he retired in
1984 Harvard made him
Professor Emeritus of the Comparative Study of
Religion . He was appointed Senior Research Associate to the Faculty of
Divinity at
Trinity College,
University of Toronto in 1985.
In his various writings Smith proposed a view of religion that stresses the
living vibrant faith of individuals, rather than any abstract set of ideas and
doctrines. This idea argues that in order to truly understand a religious
tradition an "outsider" needs to find a way to relate to the experience rather
than just using critical and historical analysis. In The Meaning and End
of Religion he traces the evolution in the meaning of the word religion
through out the seventeenth century as religion appears in the plural form for the first time.
Smith's books are
Modern Islam in India.
Islam in Modern
History.
Towards a World Theology.
The Meaning and End of
Religion.