Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-04T15:36:20.348Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

33 - The Bible in Muslim–Christian encounters

from Part III - The Bible Interpreted

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2012

Richard Marsden  and
E. Ann Matter
By
David Waines
Richard Marsden
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
E. Ann Matter
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

Islamic origins and early awareness of Christianity

In the original version of the Cambridge History of the Bible, C. F. Evans described the uniqueness of Christianity among world religions as like its being born with a Bible in its cradle. Extending the metaphor, Islam's own singular feature was to be born into the family of Abraham, the youngest of three siblings. The fact is celebrated in the Qurʾān: ‘We sent Jesus, son of Mary, in their footsteps, to confirm the Torah that had been sent before him: We gave him the Gospel with guidance, light and confirmation of the Torah already revealed – a guide and lesson for those who take heed of God’ (5: 46). In another passage (9:111), the Qurʾān, the Gospel and the Torah are mentioned together, each said to bear and fulfil the true promise of the almighty. These verses depict a historical sequence of sacred texts revealed or inspired by the one, unique, divine source. Notwithstanding the supposed unity of the grand monotheistic tradition, it is hardly surprising that family differences would break out between (and even among) descendants of the primordial three. The present chapter explores the more prominent controversies between the two younger members of the family, Christianity and Islam.

Scholarly debates over recent years concerning the origins of Islam require first a brief outline of some of the issues raised as they affect (or do not affect) the initial stage of controversies between Christians and Muslims. Two broad strands of thought are usually identified, the traditionalist and the revisionist. Because the debates arise over scholars’ different evaluations of the earliest Arabic historical sources that purport to record the origins of Islam, the two sides have also been designated ‘sanguine’ and ‘sceptical’ respectively.

Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of the Bible , pp. 638 - 656
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Wansbrough, J., Qurʾānic Studies. Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (OxfordUniversity Press, 1977)Google Scholar
The Sectarian Milieu. Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford University Press, 1978)
Crone, P. and Cook, M., Hagarism. The Making of the Islamic World (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1977)Google Scholar
Hawting, G. R., The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crone, P., ‘Two Legal Problems Bearing on the Early History of the Qurʾān’, Jerusalem Studies on Arabic and Islam 18 (1994), 17.Google Scholar
Donner, F., Narratives of Islamic Origins (Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1998)Google Scholar
Elad, A., ‘Community of Believers of “Holy Men” and “Saints” or Community of Muslims?’, Journal of Semitic Studies 67 (2002), 241–308.Google Scholar
Berg, H., Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins (Leiden: Brill, 2003).Google Scholar
McAuliffe, J. D., Qurʾānic Christians (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whelan, E., ‘Forgotten Witness. Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qurʾān’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 118 (1998), 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoyland, R. G., Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 13 (Princeton, NJ: Darwin, 1997), p. 265.Google Scholar
Sahas, D., John of Damascus on Islam. The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites’ (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 133–41.Google Scholar
Louth, A., St John Damascene (OxfordUniversity Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noth, A., ‘Problems of Differentiation between Muslims and Non-Muslims. Re-Reading the “Ordinances of Umar” (al-Shurūṭ al-ʿUmariyya)’, in R. G. Hoyland (ed.), Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, The Formation of the Classical Islamic World 18 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 103–24, at p. 104.Google Scholar
Samir, S. K., ‘The Earliest Arab Apology for Christianity’, in S. K. Samir and J. S. Nielsen (eds.), Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid Period (750–1258) (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 57–114, at p. 82.Google Scholar
The Life of Muhammad. A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, trans. Guillaume, A. (OxfordUniversity Press, 1955), pp. 103–4.Google Scholar
Griffith, S. H., ‘The Gospel in Arabic. An Inquiry into its Appearance in the First Abbasid Century’, in his Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1992), item ix, pp. 126–67, at pp. 140–1.Google Scholar
Griffith, S. H., ‘Muḥammad and the Monk Baḥīrā. Reflections on a Syriac and Arabic Text from Early Abbasid Times’, in his The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic. Muslim–Christian Encounters in the Early Islamic Period (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2002), item vii, pp. 146–73.Google Scholar
Thomas, D., ‘The Miracles of Jesus in Early Islamic Polemic’, Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (1994), 221–43, at p. 241.Google Scholar
Thomas, D., ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Abbasid Era’, in L. Ridgeon (ed.), Islamic Interpretations of Christianity (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001), pp. 78–98.Google Scholar
Thomas, D., Anti-Christian Polemic in Early Islam. Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq's ‘Against the Trinity’ (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992), p. 81.Google Scholar
Ferre, A., ‘L’historien al-Yaʾqubi et les évangiles’, Islamochristiana 3 (1977), 65–83.Google Scholar
Thackston, W. M., The Tales of the Prophets of al-Kisaʾi (Boston: Twayne, 1978), introduction, pp. xi–xxxivGoogle Scholar
Khalidi, T., The Muslim Jesus. Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 26.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×