Georgina L. Jardim, Glaser (Ida), Shafais (Shirin), The Gospels in Islamic Context. Function and Content, London, Routledge, 2025, 336 p. ISBN 9781032815190
Editors
Georgina L. Jardim is a Research Associate of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies Oxford and Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
Ida Glaser is the founder of the Center for Muslim and Christian Studies Houston, USA as well as International Academic Coordinator of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies Oxford, UK.
Shirin Shafaie is an associate research fellow and member of the Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam project at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies in Oxford.
Presentation
Bringing together scholars from across the world, this publication shows Christians and Muslims – individually or together – reading the canonical Gospels of the New Testament in ‘conversation’ with Islamic texts and contexts.
In the discovery of meaning between text, context and praxis, this volume asks ‘what are the texts doing?’ in contexts as far flung as Indonesia, the Hijaz of early Islam, in Persian poetry of medieval times or modern Sunni interpretation in north America. This second edited volume in the series Reading the Bible in Islamic Context, continues the pioneering venture in contextual and intertextual reading. It shows the richness of cooperative scholarship that results from reading the New Testament in Islamic context, and exploring how the Gospel is understood in various religious traditions.
The Gospels in Islamic Context will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners, encouraging them to explore new methods for taking into account intertextual factors as well as the history of Muslim-Christian relations that arises from them. It is a venture in which Muslims and Christians travel side by side and in conversation with each other, although with significantly different perspectives and often different agendas.
Content
Introduction - Introduction: Readers, Texts and Contexts
Ida Glaser
Part A: Foundations for Conversation
The injil and the Gospels: Meaning and Status
Chapter One – Good News: Greek euangelion, Arabic ʾinjīl and Modern Qurʾan and Bible Translations in Islamic Contexts
Andy Warren-Rothlin
Chapter Two – What are the Gospels? A Christian Reflection
Ida Glaser
Chapter Three – Balaaghi and the Canonical Gospels
Yahya Sabbaghchi
Chapter Four – Authenticating the New Testament Gospels from a Sunnite Perspective
Ali J. Ataie
Part B: Seven Conversations
1. Islamic Literature on Jesus: Where are the Canonical Gospels?
Chapter Five – Biblical Allusions in Persian Literature: Persian Poets in the Footsteps of the Christian Tradition
Mohammad Hossein Naraghi
Chapter Six – A Colloquy of God with Jesus: New Testament Parallels in an Early Collection of Sayings of Jesus in Islam
Farhad Ghoddoussi
2. Translation: Words in Context
Chapter Seven – The First Gospel in Arabic: The Islamic Context
Andrew Persson
Chapter Eight – Kitab Suci Injil: Its Significance for Reading the Matthean Nativity Story in the Indonesian Islamic Context
Ferry Y. Mamahit
3. Birth Narratives: A Shared Story?
Chapter Nine – The Virgin Mary’s Birth and Early Life in Three Narratives: New Testament, Qur’an, and Biblical Apocrypha
Nasim Hasani
Chapter Ten – Redeeming Zechariah: Silence as Mercy in Luke 1 and Q3 and Q19
Maria E. Barga
4. Signs: A Shared Category?
Chapter Eleven – Miracles as Signs? Revisiting Jesus’ Gospel Miracles in the Light of Medieval Muslim Critique
Laura Hassan
Chapter Twelve – Signs of God in the Qur’an and the Gospel of John: Persuading the Audience to Believe
Georgina L. Jardim
5. Barzakh and Paradise: A Shared Concept?
Chapter Thirteen – The Qurʾan and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: Crossing Over Barriers
Abdulla Galadari
Chapter Fourteen – ‘Today You will Be with Me in Paradise’ – Reading Luke 23:43 in Islamic Contexts
Philip Duncan Peters
6. Reading in Context
Chapter Fifteen – Respecting Mary: Woman, Mother or Inconsequential? Reconsidering John 2:4 in the Context of Islam
Carol M. Walker
Chapter Sixteen – Contesting the Meaning of the Sheep and the Goats: Variations on Contemporary Indonesian Christians’ Readings of Matthew 25:31 46
Hans A. Harmakaputra
7. Reading the Sermon on the Mount
Chapter Seventeen – By whose Authority? Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) and the Authors of the Christian New Testament
Charles M. Ramsey
Chapter Eighteen – The Sermon on the Mount Reading Group
Georgina L. Jardim