The New Testament in Muslim Eyes

Shabbir Ahktar, Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies has already put us immeasurably in debt to him for his The Quran and the Secular Mind: A Philosophy of Islam (Routledge 2007). This text explores Christian origins by examining a key New Testament letter, Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches, seen by Christians as the charter of Christian liberty from the inherited Jewish law. The New Testament in Muslim Eyes provides a close textual commentary on perhaps the earliest declaration of Paul’s apostleship. It notes the subtleties of the Greek original against the backdrop of a profound examination of Qur’anic Arabic parallels and differences. Akhtar asks: does Paul qualify as a prophet of Allah (God)? Paul’s thought is then ably assessed by examining his claims against the background of Islam’s parallel views of Abraham/Ibrahim. As such this is not only an ‘…inquiry into…the status, purpose, intention and alleged limitations of sacred law, the nature of sin and of grace, as understood variously by Jews, Christians and Muslims… it is also an effort in intellectual interfaith encounter…’ (p. 1).