Siddiqui and Vette outline the aims and scope of the volume and explain how each chapter contributes to and complicates the theme of gratitude.

Siddiqui explains how British multiculturalism has ceded to a politics of resentment, fuelled by anti-immigrant and often anti-Muslim sentiment. Siddiqui draws on the writings of Georg Simmel for whom gratitude fosters emotional and social bonds, countering a narrative of resentment with one of recognition. Rather than seeking an answer in abstract theories of multiculturalism, Siddiqui argues for a refocusing on emotional well-being through gratitude rooted in empathy.

Through a ‘conference of the books’, an imagined conference of Muslim intellects from centuries past, El Fadl speaks of the contemporary ugliness which he feels pervades the Islamic world and attempts to reclaim the moral value of beauty. El Fadl asks the question, ‘What does God command other than ihsan? And, ihsan is derived from the word hasan, which means the good, proper, and beautiful’.2 El Fadl is passionate about what he considers the current societal problems within the Islamic tradition which stem from an epistemological crisis. He writes that while many Muslims have been touched by this book, for the non-Muslim, ‘The Conference offered an opportunity to gain an insider’s view to the struggles, problems, and pains of contemporary Muslims as well as to understand what the Islamic tradition had to offer humanity’. El Fadl sees that faith in God enables humankind to reach out for the transcendent and the beautiful and that we should seek the beautiful because God is beautiful.

This book emerges from my Gifford lectures delivered at the University of Aberdeen in September 2016. I’d like to thank the Gifford Committee at Aberdeen for inviting me to give these prestigious lectures; it was an enormous honour. I would also like to thank the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh for giving me the space and time to think of how best to write the lectures for subsequent publication. During my academic career I have been privileged to sit on the Gifford committees at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and I know full well the deliberation that goes into thinking, discussing and then finally extending an invitation to someone. When I received the invitation from Professor Philip Ziegler to deliver the lectures in 2016, I knew almost instantly that my chosen theme would be human struggle alongside themes of suffering and hope. Struggle is both a personal and universal reality of human life and always present in theological, philosophical and sociological literature. Yet it has remained somewhat ignored in scholarship as historically greater attention has been given to the phenomenon of human suffering. The terms may often overlap and be used interchangeably and the definition remains a challenge. Struggle seems to be more about hope in the midst of all kinds of moral, societal and personal uncertainties; whereas suffering is often about a certain despair and anguish, a lostness of the human condition. Struggle is part of the learning process and should be expected as essential to life. Human beings can witness each other’s struggle and find mutual respect in the process, knowing that at the end of the struggle is a sense of personal achievement.

‘All life demands struggle’, said Pope Paul VI. There is something prophetic in the notion of human struggle, in affirming that facing difficulties is essential for human potential and development. We experience struggle in so many aspects of our lives, in broken relationships, in ambition, in accidents and disease, in lost loves, unrequited and forbidden loves, sickness and death, and unfulfilling jobs and failed dreams. We are struggling for or towards something: this gives struggle a hint of hope and potential, the sense that the present pain – physical or emotional – the present injustice will pass, will end by and through human efforts.

Throughout history, political life has often been marked by the struggle of individuals who wanted to take their societies in a different direction. This chapter looks at two giants of twentieth century theology and political theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45) and Sayyid Qutb (1906–66). Born in the same year, both men were products of their political environment, Qutb in the context of European colonial rule and Bonhoeffer in the context of the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism in Germany. Their lives bear witness to what they thought their respective Muslim and Christian faith required from them as individuals and for their societies. At a time when the word jihad, is ingrained on our minds and conflates personal, social and militant struggle against the state, in some ways, these two people epitomise the complexities of keeping faith linked to an ethical and political purpose. They wrote about their faith and ethics as citizens and as prisoners and while they have left very different legacies, both men were eventually hanged on charges of conspiring against the state. Sayyid Qutb criticised the Muslim world for lapsing into a state of ignorance and unbelief (jahiliyya) alongside his condemnation of the West and America in particular for its violence, sexual freedoms and materialism. While he regarded Islam as the solution to the world’s injustices, he remains a controversial figure, especially in the West where his writings are frequently associated with inspiring violence, Islamist ideologies and movements. Qutb argued that religion is not a mere theory, but also a programme, a reality and a movement for life. For him, any action that is not inspired by faith and divine law has no value. The struggle to realise divine law was not a temporary phase but rather an eternal state because ‘truth and falsehood cannot co-exist on this Earth’. For Bonhoeffer, the accusation against his fellow Christians was not one of unbelief but still a critique of their less than Christ-like ways of being Christian. The political and theological struggle of the time focused on how Christians were to act responsibly in the Church Struggle created by Hitler and Nazism. Bonhoeffer never ceased to believe in the church despite being disillusioned by its failures. He became a leading figure in the Confessing Church which stood in open conflict with the German Reich Church who supported the Nazi government. His writings focused on a Christ-centred spirituality in that one could not separate Jesus’s commands from secular life; costly grace means obedience to the call of Jesus Christ. Both men went from believing in the state to ultimately seeing it as unjust and transgressing the law. In the end they both died at the hands of the state and their prison writings bear testimony to their character and their personal faith in the face of this complex struggle.