Robert G. Morrison, Associate Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College, has been awarded an International Book of the Year prize in Iran for his study of a fourteenth-century Iranian Shiite scholar. Morrison's book, Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, is based on his Ph.D. dissertation, completed at
MEALAC in 1998.

Morrison was the only American scholar to receive one of Iran's International Book awards for 2009. He received the prize from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an award ceremony in Tehran on February 7, 2009. Books by scholars from Britain, Lebanon, India, Afghanistan, South Africa, and Iran also received prizes.

Morrison's study of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi examines the cross-fertilization of scientific and religious thought in Islamic civilization. The overlap of science and religion continues to be a rich topic of discussion in Iran, Morrison noted on the Bowdoin College website. "Islamic philosophy is something they take very seriously in Iran," he said.

"One of the judges of the book awards was the chief justice of their Supreme Court, whom I met at the ceremony. He said he was struck by the ways in which al-Nisaburi wrote about Islamic law using concepts that paralleled processes of scientific reasoning. From afar, Islamic law tends to have the reputation that it is harsh and decisive, but in fact, the consideration of what God's will may be requires a great deal of probabilistic reasoning."

The History of Science Society has awarded the 2008 Reingold Prize to Laurel Brown, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, for her essay "The Transmission of Arabic Astronomy to Europe and East Africa."

The prize, established in 1955,  is awarded for the best original graduate student essay on the history of science and its cultural influences.

The award committee described Brown's paper as "a promising study of a challenging topic. The research was made using primary sources in the original language (Arabic), which required highly specialized linguistic skills. Importantly, the analysis of Arabic astronomy is not limited to the result of the transmission of data as is often the case, but examines also the modes of the transfer. In so doing, it ventures into the difficult field of comparative history of sciences as it examines the impact of the diffusion of Arabic astronomy both on European and East African cultures. The Committee was impressed by this first essay. It opens new paths and brings a fresh approach to a fascinating topic."

The History of Science Society is the world's largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in historical context.