Profile: Prof. Robert Dickson Crane is a Resident Scholar at the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a co-founding board member and former Chairman of the Center for Understanding Islam, and Director for Global Strategy at The Abraham Federation: A Global Center for Peace through Compassionate Justice.

He received his Doctor of Laws (J.D.) in 1959 from Harvard Law School specializing in comparative legal systems and international investment. In 1962 he co-founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 1963 to 1968, he served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Richard Nixon who appointed him as Deputy Director of the National Security Council in 1969.

In 1981, President Reagan appointed him to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, responsible also for two-tier diplomacy with the various Muslim Brotherhood movements in the Middle East and North Africa. From 1982 to the present Prof. Crane has been a full-time Islamic scholar and activist. He was Principal Da'ii (religious instructor) at the Islamic Center, Washington, D.C (1983 -1986). He was Director of Publications at the International Institute of Islamic Thought from 1986 to 1988. Prof. Crane was a Founding Member of The American Muslim Council and from 1992 to 1994 served as Director of its Legal Division. In 1993, he was elected president of the Muslim American Bar Association, which he founded in order to organize Muslim participation in the American Bar Association's work on issues of conscience. Professor Crane has penned many books and professional articles on comparative legal systems, global strategy, and information management. In May 2008 the Global Civilisations Study Centre awarded him the Global Civilisations Award 2008, for promoting peace, prosperity, and freedom through thenatural law of compassionate justice as part of the Islamiccontribution to global civilisation.