Toshihiko Izutsu

Toshihiko Izutsu (1914-1993), was Professor Emeritus at Keio University of Japan who specialized in Islamic studies and comparative religion. He took an interest in linguistics at a young age, and came to know more than thirty languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Hindustani, Russian, Greek, and Chinese.

A world authority on Islamic thought,  he taught for ten years in Iran as the professor of philosophy at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, and was active in promoting trans-cultural dialogue in philosophy up until the Iranian Revolution in 1979 when he returned to Japan. He is widely known for composing the first direct translation of the Qur’an into Japanese.