Customer Reviews

Muslim Christian Dialogue: Promise and Problems

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"Muslim-Christian Dialogue: Promise and Problems" ed. by Darrol Bryant and S.A. Ali (1998), paperback, 266 pgs. (Hopefully, the "Look Inside" feature is available to see the subject matter of the 20 position-papers.) I really enjoyed reading this book; I was so enthralled with it that I tried reading it in one go. Overall, the pro-Muslim authors wrote better than their pro-Christian counterparts in explaining why there is a `conflict' between the two religions: the Muslims are upset that Christians refuse to acknowledge Muhammad as a true/ real/ correct `prophet' like Jesus and his Jewish predecessors, and that Christians are upset that Muslims claim that Jesus was not crucified (among MANY other issues too numerous to list here). It started out a little slow, the first two Christian writers acknowledged that they didn't know much about Islam; but then the quality of the writings exponentially increased. It would seem that it is difficult (impossible) to really have a meaningful `dialogue' about these two core issues: "he was according to my Holy Book-A, he wasn't according to my Holy Book-B, he was, no he wasn't".... In the writings Muslims seemed to be rather defensive about engaging in `dialogue' at all; they perceive that `dialogue' is just an attempt for Christians to educated Muslims about the correctness of the Bible over the Koran. The Christians did not write in the style of trying to convince a reader that Christianity is better than Islam; they wrote in more of an analytical style: here are the differences between the two religions - and why it is good in trying to develop dialogue with Muslims to see if some theological differences might either be overcome or at least understand the differences better. While both camps acknowledge that the Muslims respect that Jesus was a prophet, the topic that was not discussed is that Muslims believe that Jesus -- and ALL Torah prophets -- were MUSLIM prophets who actually attempted to spread the MUSLIM faith (not Judaism-Christianity) - but their teachings were `corrupted' after Jesus [i.e., the Bible was fabricated to replace the all-ready existing Koran]. This book isn't one that tries to preach what is right/wrong about these religions, but instead highlights their theological differences. [As a follow up I recommend "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" by Robert Spencer.]