Asahel Grant

Asahel Grant (August 17, 1807 – April 24, 1844) was one of the first American missionaries to Iran.

Asahel Grant
ChildrenEdwin Hodges Grant
Parent(s)
  • William Grant 

Asahel Grant was born at Marshall, New York, studied medicine at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and practiced in Utica, New York.[1] In 1835 he went as a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Iran.[2] He settled at Urmia and worked among the Nestorians there and elsewhere in western Asia. He died in Mosul in the Ottoman Empire.[3] He was a daring adventurer throughout the Middle East, but had little success in converting the fierce Nestorians, whom he considered among the "ten lost tribes" of Israel.[4][5] He wrote The Nestorians[6][7] and an appeal for Christian doctors to engage in missionary work.[8] Like David Livingstone before him (although not as famous), Grant thrilled western audiences with his adventures, inspiring a number of biographies, including those cited on this page. His success as a physician not only saved his life on several occasions, but opened the way for missionary successors.[9]

Books

References
  1. Taylor, Gordon. Fever and Thirst. An American Doctor Amid the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2008. p.6.
  2. Taylor, Gordon. Fever and Thirst. An American Doctor Amid the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2008. p.9.
  3. New international Encyclopedia, Volume 8, edited by Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, Talcott Williams. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1903.
  4. Taylor, Gordon. Fever and Thirst. An American Doctor Amid the Tribes of Kurdistan, 1835-1844. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2008.
  5. Laurie, Thomas. Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians. Johnstone & Hunter, 1853.
  6. The Nestorians; or The Lost Tribes; containing evidence of their identity; an account of their manners, customs and ceremonies; together with sketches of travel in ancient Assyria, Armenia, Media and Mesopotamia and illustrations of scripture prophecy. London: John Murray, 1841.
  7. Author page at WorldCat
  8. Lathrop, Rev. A. C. Memoir of Asahel Grant, M.D., Missionary to the Nestorians...containing also An Appeal to Pious Physicians by Dr. Grant. New York: M.W. Dodd, 1847.
  9. "Grant, Asahel, M.D." The Encyclopedia of Missions: Descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical. Edited by Edwin Munsell Bliss, Henry Otis Dwight, and Henry Allen Tupper. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1904. (Cornell)
  • Graves, Dan. "Asahel Grant's Romanticized Nestorians". Christianity.com. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
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