James Lyman Merrick (11 December 1803 in Monson, Massachusetts – 18 June 1866 in Amherst, Massachusetts) was the first American missionary to Muslims in Persia, and in 1852 became Professor of Oriental Literature at Amherst College. His career anticipates a melding of missionary and scholarly interest in Islam that would only come to fruition several decades later. As a young man Merrick was caught up in the zeal for Christian missions that had swept through New England churches after the formation of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1810. The earliest entries in Merrick's diaries, which date from 1830 shortly before he graduated Amherst College, show that he had come to Amherst already intent on serving as a missionary to Persia.
After leaving Amherst, Merrick began theological studies at Princeton, completing his theological education at the newly formed theological seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1834 he was appointed by the ABCFM to pioneer missionary work among Persian Muslims, and on August 22 of that year departed from Boston for Istanbul where he studied Turkish and prepared for his Persian mission under the supervision of veteran missionaries William Gottlieb Schauffler and William Goodell. In August 1835 Merrick moved to Tabriz where he joined a group of German missionaries and began Persian studies. The summer of 1836 he travelled to Tehran, then to Isfahan, accompanied by two of the German missionaries. Violent opposition arose in Isfahan in response to the Germans' distribution of Persian New Testaments, and the incident seems to have reinforced Merrick's conviction that open evangelism and preaching would be unfruitful among Persians. Thereafter he would consistently advocate a patient, irenic approach toward mission to Muslims. The Germans abandoned their plans and returned to Tabriz, while Merrick continued on to Persepolis and Shiraz. In Shiraz, where he stayed until March 1837 Merrick studied Persian and Arabic under the tutelage of a Sufi scholar, Mullā Muhammad, and was befriended by Mīrzā Sayyid Alī, who had assisted Henry Martyn in translating the New Testament into Persian. By the end of his stay in Shiraz, Merrick was optimistic, convinced he could work as a missionary in any city in Persia. In March 1837 he returned to Tabriz, but because of ill health left to spend a year with the Nestorian mission in Urumia. There he met Malik Qāsim Mīrzā, an uncle of the Shah, and spent three months in his residence teaching English, learning Persian and discussing religion. Finally in August 1838 he settled in Tabriz, intending to make it his permanent base, and the following year he married Eunice Taylor, the sister of an English army officer stationed in Persia. Merrick was joined in Tabriz by William Glen, a Scottish missionary who, during the next four years would translate the Old Testament into Persian. In Tabriz he wrote A Friendly Tract, worked on a translation of Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī's Hayāt al-Qulūb, and adapted and translated a work on astronomy into Persian.
In November 1839 the executive committee of the American Board, which had already expressed doubts about the viability of Merrick's mission, withdrew its support for his work among Muslims, and instructed him to join the ABCFM mission to Nestorian Christians in Urumia. Merrick resisted, but in 1942 he received a letter from the Board's secretary, Rufus Anderson, ordering him to leave Tabriz. In Urumia, Merrick completed a Persian translation of Alexander Keith's Evidence of Prophecy and began learning Syriac. Conflict with his missionary colleagues over mission policies led to further deterioration in relations with the American Board executive, culminating in his recall in 1845. After his return to the United States, stung by criticism of his mission, Merrick published his caustic appeal to the American Board in which he sought to vindicate his record and accused the board of betraying the cause of missions to Muslims. In 1949 Merrick became pastor of the South Amherst Congregational Church and was Professor of Oriental Literature at Amherst College from 1852 to 1857. In 1950 he published The Life and Religion of Mohammed, his translation of al-Majlisī's Hayāt al-Qulūb, calling attention in his preface to the need to correct "imperfect views of the Mohammedan system", and especially of Shiite Muslim beliefs, held in Christian nations.