1) Historical Survey

Islam and Christianity have co-existed since the establishment of the Muslim ummah, at Madina, in 622. Muhammad himself knew Christians and is identified by the Qur'an as belonging to the same prophetic tradition as Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. The Qur'an, too, refers to Christians, Jews as well as to Jesus. Some of these verses are critical, and may appear to suggest a negative attitude towards Christianity. For example, Q 4: 171 criticises Christians for saying that God is "Three" and for calling Jesus God's Son. Q4: 157 - though actually addressed not to Christians but to Jews, seems to suggest that Jesus was not crucified. Certainly, many Muslims believe that Jesus did not die but was taken directly to heaven. Muslim denial of the Crucifixion, a central plank of Christian belief, is obviously problematic from the Christian viewpoint! Other passages, however, speak positively of Christians as "the closest in affection" to Muslims (Q5: 82). Q2: 62 and 5: 69 say that Christians (and Jews and people called Sabeans, believed by some to have been a religious group who traced themselves back to Seth, son of Noah) who "believe in God and in the Last Day, and who do right" have no cause to fear the Day of Judgment (for Muslims, the Qur'an is an Arabic book. I am rendering its sense into English). Another verse, 29: 46 says that Muslims should not argue with the "People of the Book" (the term used in the Qur'an to describe Christians and Jews as "book possessing" communities) unless it be by "fair means" because "our God" and "their God" is One. On a similar conciliatory note, Q 5: 48 says that God has given "a divine law and a traced out way" to both Muslims and to Christians. Therefore, they should "compete with each other in good works". At the Last Day, God himself will judge their differences. Jesus is described in the Qur'an as "God's Word" and as a "Spirit" (4: 171) and also as being "like Adam", "the likeness of Jesus with Allah is as the likeness of Adam" (3: 59). This is usually interpreted as upholding the "virgin birth".

After his political and military success at Madinah, Muhammad entered into many treaties with tribes throughout Arabia. Some converted to Islam and pledged their support in the struggle against Makkah, others agreed to pay a tithe, or poll tax, in return for the protection of Muhammad's army. The Christian tribe of Najran entered such a treaty and were guaranteed the right to continue practising their Christian faith provided they did not bear arms against the ummah and in return for protection, paid the poll tax. Significantly, whilst they were negotiating this treaty with Muhammad he allowed them to worship in a corner of the Great Mosque. This type of treaty is implied by Q 9 : 29. The reference in this verse to "fighting" indicates that the early Muslims believed they should extend God's rule as widely as they could. Conquered people were to be invited to accept Islam. Those who already possessed Scriptures, however, would be allowed to continue their existing religious traditions provided they paid the tax. This, in fact, is what happened. As the Muslim armies swept through the Middle East, and beyond, in the century after Muhammad's death, Christian and Jewish communities were offered the same terms as those negotiated by the Najran Christians. These tolerated religious minorities were known as dhimmis. Whilst at times dhimmis have suffered hardship and persecution, it is not insignificant that Christian communities have not only survived in Muslim countries, but at times have actually flourished. The status of Christians today, in some parts of the Muslim world, may be less satisfactory than at any other time in the history of Christian - Muslim encounter. Cultural, linguistic, or religious minorities in any political context can be marginalised, become scape-goats, or be accused of some sort of deviancy since their very difference from the majority seems to stand over-and-against the majority. This tendency is likely to be exacerbated if a particular religion, or life-style preference, is officially endorsed, linked to the state apparatus. This is true of Muslim states where, to a lesser or greater degree, citizenship is equated with being Muslim.

How have Christians regarded Islam? When Islam emerged in the seventh century, Europe was recovering from the collapse of its classical civilization (the Greek-Roman). It was beginning to become self-consciously Christian. Islam, with its birth in the Arabian sub-continent and its rapid spread within a hundred years of its Prophet's death throughout North Africa and the Middle East, represented not only a religion but a total perspective on life. Hence the above comment about citizenship, and Muslim identity, being closely linked. In a short space of time, Islam developed its own culture, philosophical traditions and legal-economic systems. It was also a military power. Its advancing armies early encountered those of Europe on the battlefield. The Muslim armies conqured Spain in the early eighth century. Their northerly advance was halted at the Battle of Tours (732). Thus, initial encounter between Islam and the West was, from the West's perspective, negative. Part of Christian territory was lost to followers of another religion, and further loss was narrowly prevented by a bloody battle (or at least it became so in the re-telling). From the European perspective, Muslims were the "outgroup" and, as Europe went about the business of forming its own self-image, Islam was recruited to provide a counter-image. Islam would become the antithesis of everything European. Europe was civilised, the heir to the Greek-Roman legacy, godly, and so on. Thus, Islam was barabaric, devilish, and so on. Europe was Christian and all aboard the good ship Christendom were saved (the image of Noah's ark was used by the Church, all outside were perishing. Europe was enlightened, the world beyond was in darkness.

Images Consolidate: In fact, after the early border skirmishes along the Spanish-French border, the two power-blocks settled down to put their internal affairs in order for a century or two, and comparitively little encounter appears to have occured. On the one hand, this meant that there was little interest in the Islamic world in Europe - it was just "out there" beyond the borders of Christendom, as other "heathens" were to the North and East. On the other hand, lack of encounter and of any first-hand information about Islam gave the imagination free reign to invent an "other" far removed from what it was really like. The earliest information about Islam to reach Europe came by way of the Byzantine Empire - itself threatened by the ever encroaching Muslim world which had already conquered much of its territory (and eventually Constantinople itself).

Early legends about Muhammad gained Latin dress, and surfaced in Spain amongst Christians there who were opposed to the Muslim presence - and who thought it was the harbinger of the eschaton. Muhammad (according to these legends) had invented Islam with the help of renegade monks (all of whom had met grissly ends), a trained dove or pigeon would pick seed out of his ear (and was passed-off as the Holy Spirit bringing verses of the Qur'an); Muhammad predicted that he would rise from the dead three days after his death, but instead his body was dug up and eaten by pigs; his body was suspended by a giant magnet at Makkah; he was born in the year 666. Some genuine knowledge about Muhammad's life and career was mixed with this calumny. Spanish Christians, though, even with Muslims as neighbours, whom they could ask about Islam, preferred to give credence to these legends - because they came to them in the superior Latin language.

The most sustained encounter between Islam and the West, after the initial skirmishes and before the modern period, was the Crusades (1095 to 1464). The Holy Land had early fallen to Islam. Now, Europe tried to claim this back for Christianity. The Crusades were Holy Wars, initiated and blessed by the Church. They resulted in mutual animosity between the two sides, each of whom considered the other to be the aggressors. Christians regarded Muslims as aggressors for having conquered the Holy Land in the first place. Muslims regarded Christians as aggressors for starting the Crusades. Negative images were re-inforced on both sides.

An Alternative Approach: Muslim Spain (711-1492) became the centre of a creative, generally tolerant and intellectually flourishing civilization which attracted, even whilst the Crusades were at their zenith, scholars from all over Europe. Some developed serious interest in Islamic thought, especially philosophy, and developed a better informed understanding of Muslim belief. The Qur'an was rendered into Latin (1143). Thomas Aquinas, Ramon Lull, Roger Bacon and others argued that reason and philosophy ought to be the tools Christians use in their encounter with Islam, not the sword. Aquinas, like Bacon, knew and drew on apects of Islamic philosophical thought. This represents an important development; no longer are Muslims regarded as inhabitants of a different, but of the same world. Those who wrote about Islam, however, were still convinced that Christianity was superior. Thus, whilst their accounts were, in some respects, more accurate than earlier European ones, they neverthless found much in Islam to ridicule (and to contrast with Christianity's assumed superiority) - such as Qur'anic accounts of a sensual Paradise.

The establishment of Chairs of Arabic, and the gradual rendition of Islamic sources into European languages, led to European writing on Islam in which myth and calumny begins to yield to fact. However, access to primary texts did not always change the European's mind about Islam - the texts, they said, were created by the early Muslim community in order to depict Muhammad in better light. Muslim writers could not be trusted, since dishonesty, party political, or personal interests, had shaped and molded the material. The material tells us a lot about the debates, controversies and life-situation of the early Muslim community but very little about Muhammad. By the end of the nineteenth century/ beginning of the twentieth century, Europe had access to almost the entire stock of significant Islamic texts but generally advocated scepticism about the historical reliability of much of this material. Access to primary sources does not preclude scholars from constructing an Islam which serves their own interests, and which bears but little resemblance to what Muslims believe, think and do.

Nineteenth/twentieth century images: the concept of European superiority was re-inforced by the period of colonial domination, when much of the non-Western (including the Islamic world) fell under European domination. This is what Edward Said (1978) called "Orientalism". Belief in their own cultural (religious and often also racial) superiority helped Europeans to justify colonialism - by educating, and enlightening, the ignorant, Europeans were fulfilling a God-given (or evolutionary) duty. They were wise wards of immature peoples as yet unready to rule themselves! Negative images of Islam were also re-inforced by the fact that despite its territorial gains, the only real threat to European power remained the Muslim world in the form of the Ottoman Empire. In 1529 and 1683 Vienna (synominous with much of European culture) was besieged - the image of darkness and ignorance beseiging light and wisdom was easily called to mind, as was the notion of Muslim aggression. William Gladstone (1809-98) called the "Turks" "scarcely human monsters", and stated in the House of Commons that as long as the Qur'an remains in the world, there would be no peace in the world. Throughout the nineteenth century, and until its defeat as Germany's ally in World War One, Turkey was regarded as the main threat to European power and stability.

In a controversial 1993 article, Samuel P Huntington, a professor of the Science of Government at Harvard, predicts that the next great conflict "fault line" will be between Islam and the West (see also Huntington, 1996). Huntington, like many Western commentators on Islam, regards Islam as inherently prone to violence. Islam, he says, "has bloody borders". Others disagree, arguing that the Muslim world can not be said to pose a serious threat to European/American domination of the World, economically or politically, or that the Muslim world has seen more bloodshed than other parts of the globe. Neither World War was started by Muslims (nor were Muslims actually very much involved in them, apart from Turkey in WW1). Much of the Muslim world is comparitively poor. Many Muslim countries have ill-equiped and poorly trained military, although some do have highly sophisticated armed forces. Oil wealth, for example, has resulted in the creation of a modern, well trained and well equiped army in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, however, are heavily dependant on the West which provides their major market. For different reasons, Lybia and Iraq are regarded by the West as maverick and dangerous. The former has been accused of sponsoring terrorism, which re-inforces images of Islam as violent and aggressive; similarly Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In his penetrating study, Postmodernism and Islam (1992), Akbar Ahmed suggests that three recent incidents, as covered and reported by the Western media, have helped to ressurrect traditional (negative) stereotypes of the Muslim world. These events were - the Salman Rushdie affair, in which a book was burnt and a legal opinion (the fatwa) by Iran's spiritual leader said that its author should be killed; the Gulf War; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commercial International. The Rushdie affair resurrected images of Islam as barbaric, anti-liberal; the Gulf War resurrected images of Islam as violent, war-like; the collapse of the BCCI of Muslims as dishonest, as occupying a 'criminal culture' (p 2). Islam, especially fundamentalist (a term which needs to be critiqued) Islam is popularly regarded as a threat to Western democracy and liberalism. This assumes a somewhat monolithic Islamic reality, an assumption which needs to be carefully scrutinised.

The events of September 11, 2001 and subsequent military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban have led to renewed discussion about Islam and terrorism. Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi's comments on Islam as inferior to Western civilization reminded many of Huntington's theories (sales have risen). Tony Blair, Britain's Prime Minister, was quick to point out that in his opinion those responsible for the attack in New York 'contravened all the tenets of Islam' and that the war was not against Islam. Blair also stated that 'what happened in America was not the work of Islamic terrorists ... It was the work of terrorists, pure and simple. We must not honour them', he continued, 'with any misguided religious justification' (Sept. 27, Meeting with Muslim Leaders, 10 Downing Street). Bin Laden, however, has called for a jihad against the West (see BBC article, April 10 2001 Bin Laden .) Only Afganistan, says Bin Laden, has a legitimate Islamic government. Here is the text of Bin Laden's 1988 fatwa calling for the killing of American's and their allies' fatwa. For Berlusconi's comments, see Berlusconi.

New Images? Although much bias remains, and scholars, especially during the colonial period, sometimes saw fit to perpetuate old images of Islam as corrupt and Muslims as deceitful in order to justify their own rule, Christian knowledge of Islam has much improved. Some Christians can no longer dismiss Islam as having nothing to do with God, or as containing no divine truth or grace whatsoever. Here we can mention such writers as Lewis Bevan Jones (1880 - 1960) in his classic The People of the Mosque and Kenneth Cragg, in his The Call of the Minaret. William Montgomery Watt, a scholar of Islam and a Christian minister in the Scottish Epispocal Church who has contributed much to the attempt to understand Islam, has suggested that "in dialogue with Muslims it is important that Christians should reject the distortions of the medieval image of Islam and should develop a positive appreciation of its values. This involves accepting Muhammad as a religious leader through whom God has worked, and that is tantamount to holding that he is in some sense a prophet" (Watt, 1991). Whether Christians can accept that a legitimate prophet could follow Jesus may be a disputed point, though Christians do not usually deny that God has continued to inspire, and to work through, human agents since Christ. Perhaps, since Muslims already hold "Jesus" in high regard, even though this regard is not identical to that in which he is held by Christians, Christians might reciprocate by holding Muhammad in high regard, even though their regard for Muhammad will not be identical to a Muslim's regard. Many Christians engaged in thinking about what is often called "inter faith relations" now suggest that, especially where Christians live alongside Muslims in poor parts of the world, they should pool resources to, "work together for social and racial justice, for the defence of human rights and people's rights, for safeguarding and promoting religious freedom.....In the process", each may "gain new insights about the God whom they worship and discover fresh resources which help them become more humane, more sensitive to the needs of others, and more obedient to God's will for the whole of creation." (See Issues in Christian- Muslim Relations, Geneva, World Council of Churches, 199). Muslim revivalists, though, say that Christians have forfeited the right to be regarded as "people of the book", that Christianity represents a failed and morally bankrupt system, and Islam should have no truck with it.

2) Theological Issues and Debates It would be wrong to deny that theological differences do not exist between Islam and Christianity, or that they do not make truth claims which can bring them into conflict with each another. Many Christians regard Christ as the only mediator of salvation, as the final expression of God's will to and for humanity. For their part, Muslims make an almost identical claim about Islam, which, as revealed in the Qur'an, is for them God's final will for humanity. If, for Christians, God's word became flesh, then for Muslims it became "book". The theological equivalent of Christ in Islam is thus the Qur'an - which identifies one issue of debate. It can therefore be argued that to compare and contrast the claims of Christ with those of Muhammad, or of the Bible with those of the Qur'an, is to cross theological wires. In practice, however, Christians and Muslims have often done just that - and have tried to prove to each other the superiority of Christ over Muhammad, and vice-verse, and of Bible over Qur'an, and vice versa. Debates have taken place on these issues through the ages. A South African Muslim, Ahmad Deedat, stages huge public meetings, and you will find some of his writing on the www, such as his lengthy and widely published lecture on "What the Bible Says About Mohammed". This is available on the internet; http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ibrahim/Muhammad.in.Bible.html. Deedat's debates are remarkably similar to some earlier exchanges between Christians and Muslims. For an example, see the life and work of Karl G Pfander, about whom I have written (Bennett, 1996). In my view, such tit for tat exchanges produce very little positive result. Few Christians have converted to Islam, and few Muslims to Christianity, from such evangelistic endeavours. I prefer to heed the Qur'anic injunction, "And argue not with the people of the scriptures unless it be in a better way .... Our God and your God is One" (Q29: 46). As a Christian, I prefer to witness to God's love as I encounter this in Christ than to attempt to win some sort of intellectual beauty competition. For me, many of the doctrines I hold only make sense because I believe in, and experience, Christ in my life. It is putting the cart before the horse for me to expect non-Christians to understand, or to accept, such beliefs without first experiencing personal encounter with Christ.

Muslims may regard the Bible as "corrupted" (see Q 3.71- "truth" is "concealed"; 2; 75 God's word is "changed/distorted, or yuharrifuna), and, although originally a valid divine revelation, of little if any value compared with the Qur'an, in which "there is no doubt" (Q2: 34). When the "perfect" has come, that which is "incomplete" ought to be abandoned (see Q 3:3). Other verses, suggesting that not all Christians have strayed from the "path" revealed to them (for example, 4: 113, "not all of them are alike"; see also Q3: 198) have enabled some Muslims to accept that the Bible's text has not been corrupted. Instead, some Christians interpret the text incorrectly. For their part, Christians may seem wrongfooted by the fact that whilst the Qur'an contains explicit references to Christianity, the Bible does not explicitly refer to Islam (although Christians have had no trouble applying Biblical texts about heresy, and "anti-christs" to Islam). The Qur'an also criticises Christians for calling God "three" (see Q 5: 171) and for claiming that God could have a Son. Here, it is accusing Christians of exagerating Jesus' importance. It also accuses Jews and Christians of religious narrowness, of claiming that only their path is right, "And they say, 'None shall enter paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian'" (Q5: 18). Leaving aside the issue as to whether the Qur'anic version of the Trinity accurately reflects what Christians believe, there is still a theological debate here between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism, as well as on the question of the incarnation. Other issues of debate include, for Muslims, the view that compared with Islam Christianity is rather vague about what is and is not, correct or permitted behaviour. Although historically, too, Christianity has more often than not allied itself with the state, and has hardly "kept out of politcs", Muslims often characterise Christianity as divorcing "religion" and "world", as being more concerned with life after, than before, death. Thus, for some Muslims, whilst Christianity should be tolerated, it simply falls short of Islam's perfection.

Muslim scholars have argued that the more positive Qur'anic verses which address Christians are cancelled by the more negative, critical verses. This exegesis is rejected by Farid Esack, in his Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism (1997), who prefers to hold all the Qur'anic verses in hermeneutical tension. In his view, at verses such as Q5:48 (see also 2: 148, 6: 108), the Qur'an clearly endorses the validity, for Christians, of their divinely revealed path - although the Qur'an also accuses some Christians of disloyalty to this path. For Esack, however, the Qur'an unambiguously affirms that religious pluralism is part of God's plan; "the Qur'an is explicit in its acceptance of religious pluralism. Having derided the petty attempts [of others] to appropriate God, it is inconceivable that the Qur'an should itself engage in this" (p 159). Islam's mission is therefore to invite those who have no religion to embrace Islam; to those who have their own religion, its mission is to exhort them to follow it dutifully, and to refrain from self-serving deviations. Christians, for their part, may characterise Islam as, at best, a human striving after God doomed to failure because it represents human effort (salvation by works); they may argue that salvation is only through faith in Christ. In fact, Muslims do not believe that they earn salvation but that salvation is God's merciful gift (although the Qur'an does appear to promise salvation to those who die fighting in Islam's defence, see Q 4: 74). Christians may accuse Islam of being a "religion of war" (Q 9: 5 may be understood as condoning unprovoked warfare), and claim that theirs is a religion of peace (Muhammad led an army, Christ did not resist those who arrested, and killed him). Of course, Christians have justified "war", and have fought quite a few. Clearly, dialogue between Christians and Muslims has a theological agenda. It is important for each side to listen to what the other actually says, not to presuppose that they know. Christians, for example, often have a simplistic, somewhat naive, understanding of what Muslims believe about the "Oneness of God", just as Muslims often have too literal an understanding of what Christians mean by God's "threefold" nature.

Is there, then, any scope for a theological meeting of minds between Christians and Muslims? Two options can be identified. One option is for Christians and Muslims to abandon some of their traditional convictions. Some Christians (including Watt, and Hans Kung), sympathetic as they are towards Islam, have called upon Muslims to re-visit their understanding of the Qur'an as God's infallible word, and to accept that Muhammad contributed something to the Qur'an, as "word of God and word of the prophet". Muslims may call upon Christians to abandon the doctrine of the Trinity. Indeed, some Muslims have argued that Christianity was originally Unitarian and deviated into Trinitarianism at an early point in its historical and theological development. The popular Islam: the First and Final Religion suggests that, "Christianity started with belief in one God" but "Due to Paul Jesus acquired a dual personality and became both man and God" (p 187; numerous editions); thus "Unitarianism can play a very significant part in the World today. It can ... act as a bridge between the Islamic and the Christian world ... " (p 192). Although John Hick, and other Christian theologians, argue for a radical re-thinking of traditional Christian dogmas, including the Trinity, few Christians show inclination to follow this option. Similarly, whilst Muslims such as Esack, Zakaria, and others, are willing to re-visit Qur'anic texts, to understand these "in their historical context" (Zakaria, 1988 p 32) I have never met a Muslim for whom the Qur'an is not wholly divine speech.

However, just as Christians distinguish between Christ as "wholly God" and "the whole of God", so Muslims may view the Qur'an as "wholly divine word" but not as "the whole of God's word". Esack usefully summarises the thought of Muhammad Arkoun, who (influenced by Paul Ricoeur) "distinguishes between three levels of the word of God". First, there is the "transcendent, infinite and unknown" word. Second, "fragments" of this "word' are "revealed through the prophets". Third, there is the "textual objectification of the word" when "Qur'an becomes a mushaf, i.e., written text" (p 70; see also Arkoun, 1994 p 37. Arkoun, 1994 is an accessible English translation of his thought). Thus, we know as much of God as God has revealed of God's-self but we do not know the whole of God. The language of the Qur'an, too, is language adapted to the needs of human minds; "scripture is itself communicated through natural languages [which are] used as systems of signs" (Esack p 69). Similarly, addressing Muslims, a Christian writes thus about the early Church attempting to express, within "the poverty of human language" what it had experienced about the nature of God; "for want of better language", it spoke, he says, of "the threefoldness of God". Yet, "No Christian claims that even the most widely-accepted definition of the Trinity is adequate to the ultimate truth about God" (Jones, 1938 p 95). At what we might call the "highest level" (the "whole of God" level) it is inadequate, I suggest, for us to speak of God as One, or as Three. This reduces God to a mathematical concept. It fails, I suggest, to do justice to the mysterium of God. The "ineffable God" whom Muslims and Christians worship is ultimately beyond "number". On the other hand, there may not be as great a gap between Christian and Muslim doctrines of God as we have usually assumed: Muslims do not understand the "Oneness" of God simplistically - tawhid is an active, dynamic concept; God is continually holding all God's qualities and attributes in balance. Muslims, too, whilst affirming the "unity" of God believe that God has many Names, qualities and attributes - indeed, 99 of them. Is this as radically different from Christian belief in a threefold experience of God as has often been supposed? I may be mistaken. However, I have argued that whilst Muslims find traditional Christian Trinity-language problematical, they have no difficulty accepting God's reality as complex. If this is true (dialogue may help me determine whether it is) it will not resolve all of our theological debates but it might invite us to listen more carefully to what each of us really believe, and to examine whether our beliefs are actually as contradictory as we have sometimes thought they are.

Standing between the devil and a hard place, Muslims and Christians might ask: would the God whose will we discern through Christ (see Matthew 25) and Qur'an/Prophet (see Q5: 48) rather hear us debating endlessly about Unity and Trinity, or see us liberating the oppressed, seeking the welfare of the poor, and meeting our neighbours needs? I also agree with Knitter (1996), that "A missionary who has filled the church with converts without seeking to change a society that condones dowry deaths or bonded labor is a failure" (p 121). My second, and preferred option, is therefore for Christians and Muslims to accept that whilst on the one hand our theological formulations do not lack "truthfulness", on the other hand they do not exhaust the mystery of God. Indeed, it might be the Spirit who inspires our dialogue who will "guide us into all truth" (John 16: 13). As a Christian, too, what the Spirit does in the hearts and lives of those who hear the Gospel is not under my control. To cite Lesslie Newbigin (1989), my former teacher, "The story is itself, as St Paul says, the power of God for salvation. The Christian must tell it ... it is not her business to convert the others. ... This will always be a mysterious work of the Spirit, often in ways which no third party will ever understand ....."

References

Ahmed, Akbar (1992) Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise, London, Routledge

Arkoun, Mohammed (French, 1969, English edn, 1994) Rethinking Islam, translated and edited by Robert D Lee, Colarado, Westview Press

Bennett, Clinton (1993) "The Legacy of Lewis Bevan Jones" pp 126 -129, International Bulletin of Missionary Reserach, Vol 17, No 3, July

Bennett, Clinton (1996), "The Legacy of Karl Gottlieb Pfander" pp 76 - 81, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol 22, No 2, April

Cragg, Kenneth (1956, 2nd ed, 1986) The Call of the Minaret, Oxford, OUP; London, Collins.

Esack, Farid (1997) Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism, Oxford, Oneworld

Hick, John (1973, ed 1988) God and the Universe of Faiths, London, Macmillan; edn 1996 Oxford, Oneworld.

Hick, John (1994) "Christianity Among The Religions of the World", pp 11 - 24, Discernment, NS Vol 1 No 3

Huntington, Samuel P (1993) "The Clash of Civilizations", pp 22 -49, Foreign Affairs, Vol 72, No 3

Huntington, Samuel P (1996) "The West Unique, Not Universal", pp 28 - 46, Foreign Affairs, Vol 75, No 6

Huntington, Samuel P (1996b) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, Simon and Schuster

Jones, Lewis Bevan (1932) The People of the Mosque, London, SCM

Jones, Lewis Bevan (1938) Christianity Explained to Muslims, Calcutta, YMCA Press

Knitter, Paul (1996) Jesus and the Other Names, Oxford, Oneworld

Kung, Hans (1984; 1993) Christianity and the World Religions, London, SCM

Kung, Hans (1997) "Farewell Lecture" pp 71 - 111, in W Jens, K-J Kuschel, and H. Kung, Dialogue With Hans Kung, London, SCM

Said, Edward (1978)Orientalism, Harmonsdworth, Penguin

Watt, William Montgomery (1991) Muslim-Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misconceptions, London, Routledge

World Council of Churches (1992) Issues in Christian- Muslim Relations: Some Ecumencial Considerations, Geneva, WCC

Zakaria, Rafiq (1988) The Struggle Within Islam: The Conflict Between Religion and Politics, Harmondsworth, Penguin

Zakaria, Rafiq (1991) Muhammad and the Quran, Harmondsworth, Penguin

© Clinton Bennett, 1998. Revised 2002

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