The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam


Book Description

The theme of this book is the early encounters between Christianity and Islam in the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire and in Persia from the beginnings of Islam in Mecca to the time of the Abbasids in Bagdad. The contributions in this volume deal with crucial subjects of political and theological dialogue and controversy that characterized the varying responses of the Christian communities in the Byzantine Eastern provinces to the Islamic conquest and its subsequent impact on Byzantine society and history. This volume opens up new research perspectives surrounding the confrontation of Christianity with the early theological and political development of Islam. The present publication emphasizes the importance of the study of the beginnings and the foundations of the relations between the two religions.




The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter


Book Description

The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter is a Festschrift in honour of David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam, and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Editors have put together a collection of over 30 contributions from colleagues of Professor Thomas that commences with a biographical sketch and representative tribute provided by a former doctoral student, and comprises a series of wide-ranging academic papers arranged to broadly reflect three dimensions of David Thomas’ academic and professional work – studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. These are set in the context of a focussed theme – the character of Christian-Muslim encounters – and cast within a broad chronological framework. Contributors, excluding the editors, are: Clare Amos, John Azumah, Mark Beaumont, David Cheetham, Rifaat Ebied, Stanisław Grodź SVD, Alan Guenther, Damian Howard SJ, Michael Ipgrave, Muammer İskenderoğlu, Risto Jukko, Alex Mallett, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Lucinda Mosher, Gordon Nickel, Jørgen Nielsen, Claire Norton, Emilio Platti, Luis Bernabé Pons, Peniel Rajkumar, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Andrew Sharp, Sigvard von Sicard, Richard Sudworth, Mark Swanson, Charles Tieszen, John Tolan, Davide Tacchini, Herman Teule, Albert Walters.




Encountering the World of Islam


Book Description

Discover God's Heart for Muslims: Investigate Islam through this positive and hopeful 640-page book. Encountering the World of Islam explores the Muslim world and God's plan for Muslims. Read from a collection of writings about the life of Muhammad, the history of Islamic civilization, Islamic beliefs, Muslims today, and the everyday lives of Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. Gain insight from 80 different practitioners into diverse Muslim cultures and worldviews as well as Christian outreach toward Muslims, our response to Islam, and prayer for the Muslim world. This book is used as the textbook for the Encountering the World of Islam course. Revised, updated, and expanded for 2014.Fifty-seven new articles, highlights, maps, and tables.Fully indexed and cross-referenced.Over 100 additional pages of free online articles at the companion website.Features: Reading Assignments: Each lesson includes an average of 35 pages of reading, plus additional articles online (available after free registration for access). Highlights: Brief readings focusing on specific topics of interest to the reader are found throughout the book, including: Concepts: Important biblical or cultural concepts the student should know.Outreach: Appropriate ways for reaching out to Muslims.People Groups: Overviews of the major ethnic Muslim affinity blocks, illustrated with descriptions of characteristic people groups from each block.Pray Now: Guides to praying for Muslims within each lesson.Quotes: Quotations from "the experts" illustrating important lesson points.Qur'an: Important verses and concepts from the Qur'an.Stories: Narrative accounts from the lives of Muslims and Muslim-background believers.Women: Specific issues that affect the lives of Muslim women.Ponder This: Introductory questions help set the mental stage for entering each lesson. Explore: Recommendations for deeper exploration of lesson topics. Discussion Questions: Application questions to use in class activities, provide ideas for forum postings, or simply serve as points for individual reflection. Learn More: Additional activities which may be assigned by your professor or completed just for fun, including reading, watching, praying, visiting, eating, listening, meeting, shopping, and browsing the internet. Glossary: Unfamiliar terms or concepts are cross-referenced and included in the 40-page glossary. Pronunciation Guide: Help with pronouncing non-English words found throughout the text. Common Word List: Key words that occur frequently throughout the book. Illustrations: 110 illustrations, maps, and tables. Index: Comprehensive and extensively cross-referenced topical index, as well as separate Bible and Qur'an indices. Bibliography: Complete, scholarly collection of the authors, readings, and highlights that appear in the book. Resources for teaching: Example lectures and PowerPoint presentations for the materials in Encountering the World of Islam are available in the Instructor Resources area of our companion website.




People of the Book


Book Description

The Christians that lived around the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad’s lifetime are shrouded in mystery. Some of the stories of the Prophet’s interactions with them are based on legends and myths, while others are more authentic and plausible. But who exactly were these Christians? Why did Muhammad interact with them as he reportedly did? And what lessons can today’s Christians and Muslims learn from these encounters? Scholar Craig Considine, one of the most powerful global voices speaking in admiration of the prophet of Islam, provides answers to these questions. Through a careful study of works by historians and theologians, he highlights an idea central to Muhammad’s vision: an inclusive Ummah, or Muslim nation, rooted in citizenship rights, interfaith dialogue, and freedom of conscience, religion and speech. In this unprecedented sociological analysis of one of history’s most influential human beings, Considine offers groundbreaking insight that could redefine Christian and Muslim relations.




When Christians First Met Muslims


Book Description

The first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living in what constitutes modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and eastern Turkey, these Syriac Christians were under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present. They wrote the earliest and most extensive accounts of Islam and described a complicated set of religious and cultural exchanges not reducible to the solely antagonistic. Through its critical introductions and new translations of this invaluable historical material, When Christians First Met Muslims allows scholars, students, and the general public to explore the earliest interactions of what eventually became the world's two largest religions, shedding new light on Islamic history and Christian-Muslim relations.




Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. Volume 2 (900-1050)


Book Description

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 2 (CMR2) is the second part of a general history of relations between the faiths. Covering the period from 900 to 1050, it comprises a series of introductory essays, together with the main body of more than one hundred detailed entries on all the works by Christians and Muslims about and against one another that are known from this period. These entries provide biographical details of the authors where known, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between leading scholars in the field, CMR2 is an indispensable basis for research in all elements of the history of Christian-Muslim relations.




Muslim-Christian Encounters (Routledge Revivals)


Book Description

First published in 1991, this title explores the myths and misperceptions that have underpinned Muslim-Christian relations throughout history, and which endure to the current day. William Montgomery Watt describes how the myths originated and developed, and argues that both Muslims and Christians need to have a more accurate knowledge and positive appreciation of the other religion. Chapters discuss the Qur’anic perception of Christianity, attitudes to Greek philosophy and the relationship between Islam and Christianity in medieval Europe. Written by one of the leading authorities on Islam in the West, Muslim-Christian Encounters remains a relevant and vivid study and will be of particular value to students of Islam, religious history and sociology.




World Christianity in Muslim Encounter


Book Description

Global Christianity in Local Context and Muslim Encounter is a unique collection of essays in honour of David A. Kerr, well-known for his contributions in the areas of Christian-Muslim dialogue, Ecumenical Studies and Missions. With contributions from recognized experts in these fields, the book provides a platform for examining contemporary Christian-Muslim relations and critical issues facing twenty-first century Christianity. Volume 2 is a veritable Who's Who of renowned Christian and Muslim scholars that have shaped the course of Christian-Muslim dialogue over the last half century. Their contributions in this volume address contemporary and pivotal issues facing Christians and Muslims today, such as Islamophobia, Islamism, Religious Freedom, Inter-religious Challenges and Urbanism, Mission and Economic Globalisation, Suffering and Social Responsibility, and others.




World Christianity Encounters World Religions


Book Description

Synthesizing the thinking of the most prominent scholars, Professor Edmund Chia discusses practically everything that should be known about Christianity’s encounter with other religions in this comprehensive book. Topics include: the invention of the idea of World Religions and World Christianity the Bible and the church’s attitude toward other faiths Vatican II, Asian Christianity, and interfaith dialogue the what, why, when, and how of dialogue the global ecumenical movement theologies of religious pluralism cross-textual hermeneutics comparative theology interfaith worship religious syncretism multiple religious belonging interfaith learning in seminaries.




Muslim-Christian Encounters


Book Description

While the subject of Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian interaction is still not a traditional or systematic discipline, interest in the encounter of these two religions has grown considerably over the last decade. Historians, including historians of Islam and Christianity have always been interested in the civilizational meeting of the two religions, in conflict or in times of peace. This includes aspects of post-colonial studies, which incorporate cultural, literary and political writings which consider the intellectual and social ruptures in so much of the Islamic world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Theologians however have only recently begin to appreciate the amount of material which illustrates the extent to which Christians and Muslims wrote about one another's faith and spoke of each other in a variety of contexts in both polemical and eirenic terms. These resources serve to enrich the understanding of one's own faith and the changing historical relationship with the other. Today, Muslim-Christian is often understood as Islam/West where the Christianity and secularism are either conflated or Christianity subsumed within the larger cultural framework of the west. Either way, Islam is a foreign presence and its points of reference not easily assimilated in the narrative of a Judaeo-Christian West. Nevertheless this has created an interesting intellectual and scholarly dynamic in a wide range of disciplines. This includes ethics, politics, gender studies and the emergence of an interfaith' literature which is increasingly used in scholarly as well as grass roots settings. The collection will comprise around sixty pre-published journal articles and some book chapters. Each volume will contain around 15 articles/chapters. The articles will be secondary sources analysing the works of individual Christian and Muslim scholars, so will not be extracts of primary material thought it is hoped that the majority will contain some primary material. Volume One will contain an Introduction to the whole collection. The volumes will provide a unique and rich reflection of Muslim-Christian encounter. This work will introduce the scholar and the student to the variety of approaches people of faith/no faith have taken to thinking about the two religions. The volumes will cover doctrine, interfaith practice as theory and lived realities and philosophical and literary themes and approaches.