1st Edition

The Gospels in Islamic Context Function and Content

Edited By Georgina L. Jardim, Ida Glaser, Shirin Shafaie Copyright 2025
336 Pages
by Routledge

336 Pages
by Routledge

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... Read more

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

Biography

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.