Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations program, housed within the School of Divinity at The University of Edinburgh draws on the strengths of one of the most distinguished centers of religious and theological studies in the UK. It offers a deep and broad study of the rich intellectual traditions of Islamic law, theology and philosophy in conversation with Christian thought, ethics and political theology.

The dialogical framework of the course allows you to study multiple disciplines in both Islamic and Christian thought and practice, not as mere historical artifacts, but as resources that transform the academic study of religion and engage public debates on the place of Islam, Christianity, and religion in society.

The program’s core courses will enable students to receive a strong grounding in the major themes and methodologies in Islam and in the academic study of Christian-Muslim relations.

Students will gain a deep appreciation of the philosophical, theological and ethical debates between Christians and Muslims in different times and places.

The program offers opportunities for study and collaboration with world renowned academics, with a view to tailoring a personalized path to doctoral study or to other relevant careers.

Compulsory courses

– The Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

– Approaches to Research in Divinity and Religious Studies

– Approaches to Research: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Optional Courses

– God of the Oppressed: Liberation Theologies in Christianity and Islam

– Islamic Law: From Prayer to Politics

– Islamic Theology: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives

– Pioneers of Political Islam

– Christian-Muslim Relations: Diatribe, Discourse and Dialogue

– Muslim and Christian Perspectives on Jesus

Learning outcomes

– expertise in the major themes and debates in the academic study of Islam

– specialized knowledge and expertise in several major aspects of both Islam and Christian-Muslim relations

– a facility with select major thinkers in the history of Islamic thought and/or Christian-Muslim relations

– an appreciation of how various social, historical, cultural, and political contexts shape and inform the relationship between Christians and Muslims

– a clear understanding of how Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim relations relate to and engage other academic disciplines, especially religious studies, theology, philosophy, law, and politics

– the ability to analyze the relationship between contemporary and modern Christian-Muslim encounters and the history of Christian-Muslim dialogue, diatribe, and debate

Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/

Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History

Volume 19. Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America (1800-1914)

Edited by David Thomas and John A. Chesworth

Publisher: Brill

Publication Date: June 23, 2022

ISBN: 978-9004471672

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History19 (CMR 19), covering Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous new and leading scholars, CMR 19, along with the other volumes in this series, is intended as a basic tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations.

Source: Brill

Professor Ayoub spearheaded the establishment of Imam Ali Chair for Shia Studies and Dialogue Among Islamic Schools of Thought. This is the first chair for Shia studies in North America, a lasting legacy for Dr. Ayoub’s long and successful career.

Dr. Ayoub was born in a devout Muslim family in 1935 at Ain Qana (South Lebanon), a small town with an integrated religious population. His upbringing was socially integrated with events and people from both the Islamic and Christian religious faiths. Mahmoud Ayoub attended a British Presbyterian missionary school for the blind as a child.

He received his education at the American University of Beirut (BA, Philosophy, 1964), the University of Pennsylvania (M.A., Religious Thought, 1966), and Harvard University (Ph.D., History of Religion, 1975).

His doctoral dissertation, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura’ in Twelver Shiism in the Middle Ages turned into a book that still stands as a classic in the field.

From 1988 to 2008, Dr. Ayoub was a Professor and Director of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religion at Temple University in Philadelphia. Over his career, he also taught at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, San Diego State University, the University of Toronto, and McGill University, among others.

During the early 1990s, he supervised a group project to translate Al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, a monumental contemporary commentary on the Qurʾān by the late Mohammad-Hossein Ṭabāṭabāʾī from Arabic into English. Although that project was never finished, it gave birth to Dr. Ayoub’s two-volume commentary on the early sūras of the Qurʾān.

In 1998, Dr. Ayoub helped devise and launch a graduate M.A. level program in Muslim-Christian relations and comparative religion for the Centre for Christian-Muslim Studies, University of Balamand, Lebanon.

After decades of working in leading universities nationwide, Professor Ayoub found a welcoming home at the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary — now Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.  Professor Ayoub and his wife, Linda Clark lived on campus, attended educational events where Dr. Ayoub often offered insightful commentary, and frequently welcomed students, alumni, faculty, and staff into their home.

Throughout his academic career, Professor Ayoub has received distinguished awards and scholarships, both for his achievements and research. Among others, he was a recipient of the Kent Doctoral Fellowship and the Canada Council Fellowship. In 1994-1995, he participated in the Fulbright Exchange of Scholars program for Malaysia. In the Spring-Summer of 2000, he undertook a research project on Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt and Lebanon, also on a Fulbright scholarship.

Published works: 

• Redemptive Suffering in Islam (1978)
• The Qur’an and Its Interpreters – Volume I (1984)
• The Qur’an and Its Interpreters – Volume II (1992)
• Islam: Faith and History (2005)
• A Muslim View of Christianity: Essays On Dialogue (2007)
• The Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Politics in Early Islam (2014)
• Dirasat fi al-‘Alaqat al-Masihiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Arabic

In addition, his articles have appeared in books and journals such as:

• The Muslim World, Journal of the American Oriental Society
• Bulletin of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies (Tokyo)
• Islamochristiana (Rome, Italy).

Dr. Ayoub’s authority in both the scholarship and comparative study of Islam and Muslim-Christian relations, as well as interreligious dialogue, is demonstrated by the national and international recognition he has received worlwide.

At the Islamic Research and Information Center, we would like to express our sincere condolences to the Islamic society as a whole and, in particular, to Dr. Ayoub’s family, friends and academic associates on the sorrowful loss of Professor Mahmoud Ayoub and ask Allah, Almighty for extending His grace and blessings to his soul.

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Edited by University of Birmingham, UK, and WRWC program, University of Notre Dame, USA

4 Issues per year

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Print ISSN: 0959-6410

Online ISSN: 1469-9311

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations promotes the scholarly study of Islam as a religious and intellectual tradition, and its relations with Christianity and other religions. Islam as a religious and intellectual tradition includes:

• Islam as a historical tradition of faith and a current lived reality throughout the world;
• the development of religious teachings and debates about orthodox beliefs;
• major Muslim movements and thinkers;
• religious teachings and principles as motivation for individuals and societies;
• Islamic beliefs in new social contexts past and present; and,
• the future of Islam.

Islam in its relations with Christianity and other religions includes:

• Muslim attitudes towards other religions;
• Christian and other religious attitudes towards Islam;
• mutual influences between Islam and other religions;
• historical and contemporary interfaith collaborations and rivalries;
• religious factors in encounters and confrontations; and,
• Muslim minorities in non-Muslim societies and non-Muslims in Muslim-majority societies.

Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations is edited by the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, and the World Religions and World Church (WRWC) program, University of Notre Dame, USA.

Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations is abstracted and indexed in:

– American Theological Library Association
– Applied Social Science Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)
– ATLA Religion Database
– British Humanities Index
– European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH)
– IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews)
– IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature)
– SCOPUS
– Sociological Abstracts
– Theological and Religious Abstracts
-Thomson Reuters Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)

Source: tandfonline.com