Islam, Christianity and the Realms of the Miraculous

The academic discipline of Islamic Studies and the wider world owes a significant debt to Ian Netton, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author or editor of some twenty-two texts including Islam, Christianity and Tradition: a Comparative Exploration (EUP 2006) and Islam, Christianity and the Mystic Journey: a Comparative Exploration (EUP 2011) which are the first two parts of his Islam-Christianity Trilogy. This volume forms the final part. Miracle stories in sacred texts have long been a source of both popular fascination and scholarly debate across religious traditions and notably in Christianity and Islam. Qur’anic miracle stories are especially interesting because they are part of a discourse that also de-emphasises the miraculous. In the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, the miraculous attests both to the interventionist Transcendent God in human affairs and to proofs of the integrity of prophetic figures. The New Testament Gospel narratives with their depictions of miraculous healings, feedings of thousands, and raising of the dead are used to affirm a Messianic and divine/human hypostatic identity for Jesus of Nazareth in the Christian traditions.