Thinking Biblically about Islam
Genesis, Transfiguration, Transformation
In this careful double exposition of the Bible and Islam, Ida Glaser and Hannah Kay emphasise godly attitudes, loving action and a deep appreciation of God’s grace and goodness as essential traits of any Christian. The authors walk the reader through two underlying frameworks necessary to think biblically about Islam. The first is to understand the dynamic of religion in people’s lives through Genesis 4-11’s account of the world after ‘the fall’, and hence to understand Bible stories within the religious contexts in which they occurred. The second is at the heart of the book – the idea that Islam inverts the exaltation of Christ above the prophets in the narrative of the transfiguration in Luke 9 and 10. Examining the themes of the land, zeal, law and the cross in these chapters of Luke’s Gospel and the Old Testament stories of Moses and Elijah, we are led to better understand the Bible, Islam and God’s heart towards Muslims.
Vice-Principal, Institute for Classical Languages,
This is an extraordinary book. . . [that] looks squarely at how Muslims, in all their remarkable diversity, look at a wide variety of things – events or stances or people that are treated both in the Qur’an and in the Bible. . . Highly recommended.
D. A. Carson
Research Professor of New Testament,
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Here is a very fresh and original way of helping Christians to engage with Muslims and Islam. While readers therefore will appreciate the thorough academic study which undergirds this book, they won’t be able to escape the personal challenges which are presented on every page about how Christians should think about Muslims and Islam.
Formerly lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Near East School of Theology, Beirut,
and visiting lecturer at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut
[This] is an outstanding book. Ida Glaser is a uniquely qualified author – academically, spiritually and personally. It is the rare combination of academic excellence and spiritual sensitivity that gives her book such a unique quality. In a time of reductionist slogans about Islam, be they motivated by panic and fear, or naiveté and ignorance, a book like Thinking Biblically about Islam is a more than welcome invitation to godly wisdom, loving concern and informed balance, so urgently needed in the contemporary troubled world.
Head of Religious Studies Department Protestant Theological Faculty, Charles University
I am thrilled to see this solidly evangelical book which encourages us to think about Islam through the eyes of God and to ‘listen to Him’ (Luke 9:35). Thinking Biblically about Islam is an excellent resource for any Christian to think and understand Islam from different points of view. I specially recommend it for ministers and lay people who work with Muslims or have Muslim background Christians in their congregations.
Mohammad Reza Eghtedarian
Curate for Liverpool Cathedral and Sepas
Thinking Biblically about Islam, is opportune, rigorous and challenging. It is a very timely contribution to today’s world. To read this book is to be challenged to listen better to ourselves, to others, and particularly to the Bible and what it calls us to in living obediently as God’s people. I highly recommend it to church leaders, Bible teachers and all Christians engaged with Muslim (and other religious) communities.
Adjunct Research Fellow,
Melbourne School of Theology
Thinking Biblically about Islam is one of the most exhaustive and thorough works I have seen on the subject of the gospel in church and culture. It reminds all who proclaim Jesus as Lord of the central theme of his teaching. It calls on true believers in Christ to ‘think biblically about Islam’ and about all of life. An extraordinary work – highly recommended!
Registrar and Senior Lecturer in Islam and Global Christianity,
Gindiri Theological Seminary
Thinking Biblically about Islam is a wonderful book about the amazing grace of God in Muslim-Christian interaction. It is about the heart of God which grieves for all human beings to be saved. Glaser gently and yet powerfully invites everyone to know the heart of God and love him, and to love their neighbours – Muslim, Christian, or anyone – by transformation (or transfiguration) of oneself through the cross of Jesus. This is an awakening and unavoidable call of God for his church today. . . a must-read book.
Matthew Jeong (Keung-Chul)
Director of ‘Islam Partnership’
South Korea Professor of World Religions,
Hap-Dong Theological Seminary
Thinking Biblically about Islam is long overdue and a timely contribution in the current climate of intense intra-Christian debate on what to make of the Qur’an, Muhammad and whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God, among others. All readers, whatever their theological convictions, will find much to stimulate their thinking in this book.
The Lausanne Movement's Senior Associate for Islam
Professor of World Christianity and Islam,
Columbia Theological Seminary
- 5 - Messiah
- 6 - Jesus
- Part 3 Islam
- 7 - Elijah and Moses in the Qur’an
- 8 - Thinking about the Qur’an
- 9 - Thinking about Muhammad
- 10 - Thinking about the Ummah: Community, Power and Violence
- 11 - Thinking about Shari‘ah
- 12 - Thinking about Islam
- Part 4 Transformation
- 13 - Law, Zeal and the Cross
- 14 - Coming Down the Mountain
- 15 - Sending Out the Disciples