This book analyzes Christian presentations of Christ for Muslims in the most creative period of Christian-Muslim dialogue, the first half of the ninth and the second half of the twentieth century. In these two historical moments, Christians made a serious effort to present their faith in Christ in terms that take into account Muslim perceptions of him, with a view to bridging the gap between Muslim and Christian convictions produced by Muslim rejection of Christ's divine sonship and the death of Christ by crucifixion. A comparative study is made of the contributions of three apologists from the early ninth century--Abu Qurra, Abu Ra'ita, and 'Ammar al-Basri--and three twentieth-century apologists--Kenneth Cragg, John Hick and Hans Kung--in order to seek a model for dialogue on Christology between Christians and Muslims in the twenty-first century.

The Qur’an identifies Jesus as a sign of God, and he holds a place as one of the most important prophets in Islam. Looking at Jesus in Islam also reveals both deep differences from and rich connections to the view of Jesus in Christianity. In The Other Prophet, Mouhanad Khorchide and Klaus von Stosch explore and explain the position of the Qur’anic Jesus, with one scholar working from the Muslim and the other from the Christian theological perspective. Their combined research presents a history of Jesus’ presence in the Qur’an and provides astute observations to deepen the understanding of both Christians and Muslims. Here we find that a common view of Jesus from the Muslim and Christian sides is not only possible, but also expands our understanding of Jesus and his message.

Images of Jesus Christ in Islam 2nd Edition provides a general introduction to the question of Jesus Christ in Islam and a dialogical discussion of this issues' importance for Christian-Muslim relations. Its originality lies in its comprehensive presentation of relevant sources and research and its discussion of Islamic images of Christ in the wider context of Muslim-Christian relations. Oddbjørn Leirvik provides a comprehensive introduction to a breadth of Muslim traditions through an examination of interpretations of Jesus throughout history, whilst also examining historic tensions between Islam and Christianity. This book's distinctive contribution lies in its dialogical perspective in the perennial area of interest of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations.

Prophet or messiah, the figure of Jesus serves as both the bridge and the barrier between Christianity and Islam. In this accessible and revelatory book, Muslim scholar and popular commentator Mona Siddiqui explores the theological links between the two religions, showing how Islamic thought has approached and responded to Jesus and Christological themes from its earliest days to modern times. The author finds that the philosophical overlap between the two religions is greater than previously imagined, and this being so, her book brings with it the hope of improving interfaith communication and understanding./divDIV DIVThrough a careful analysis of selected works by major Christian and Muslim theologians during the formative, medieval, and modern periods of both religions, Siddiqui focuses on themes including revelation, prophesy, salvation, redemption, grace, sin, eschatology, law, and love. How did some become the defining characteristics of one faith and not the other? Which—and why—do some translate between the two religions? With a nuanced and carefully considered analysis of critical doctrines of Christianity and Islam, the author provides a refreshing counterpoint to contemporary polemical arguments and makes an important contribution to reasoned interfaith conversation./div

In The Religious Concordance: Nicholas of Cusa and Christian-Muslim Dialogue, Joshua Hollmann examines Nicholas of Cusa’s unique Christocentric approach to Islam. While many late medieval Christians responded to the fall of Constantinople with polemic, Nicholas of Cusa wrote a peaceful dialogue (De pace fidei) between Christians and Muslims as synthesis of religious concordance through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Nicholas of Cusa’s Christ-centered dialogue with Muslims sheds further light on his broader Christ centered theology over his entire career as philosopher and theologian. Drawing upon Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophical foundations for religious dialogue and peace, Joshua Hollmann convincingly proves that Cusa constructively understands religious diversity through the concordance of religion as centred in Christ.

In Common Words in Muslim-Christian Dialogue Vebjørn L. Horsfjord offers an analysis of texts from an international dialogue process between Christian and Muslim leaders. Through detailed engagement with the Muslim dialogue letter A Common Word between Us and You (2007) and a large number of Christian responses to it, the study analyses the dialogue process in the wake of the Muslim initiative and shows how the various texts gain meaning through their interaction. The author uses tools from critical discourse analysis and speech act analysis and claims that the Islamic dialogue initiative became more important as an invitation to Muslim-Christian dialogue than as theological reflection. He shows how Christian leaders systematically chose to steer the dialogue process towards practical questions about peaceful coexistence and away from theological issues.

The Meaning of Son of God provides a Biblical interpretation of the term son of God. The term interpreted in a different way by the Christians and the Christian’s explanation on this term responded by Muslim through Islamic view, which considered as a mistake in term of faith. As a result, there is a misunderstanding between Christian and Muslims concerning the term son of God.

“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York Times When Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.” Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book. The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians—the Jewish followers of Jesus—saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam. Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam—a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.

Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an? The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context. Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.