Muslim-Christian interactions in the second half of the twentieth century

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of Muslim–Christian relations in the second half of the twentieth century, focusing on the emergence of formal interreligious dialogue as a mode of engagement qualitatively distinct from the polemics and disputations of earlier centuries. Using a historical and analytical method, the study traces the institutionalisation of dialogue in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, notably through the establishment of the Secretariat for Non-Christians in 1964, renamed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 1988, and of the World Council of Churches’ Sub-Unit on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies in 1971. It surveys the guidelines these bodies produced, the international consultations they convened, and the contribution of Muslim organisations, governments and individual scholars, among them Mohamed Talbi and Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, to the dialogical process. It further identifies the academic centres and scholarly groups, including the Groupe de Recherche Islamo-Chrétien, Hartford Seminary and the Selly Oak centre in Birmingham, that have sustained this engagement. These developments are situated within their political context: decolonisation, migration to Western Europe and North America, the Lebanese civil war, and conflicts in Iran, Algeria and Nigeria, which demonstrate that religious and political factors can seldom be neatly disentangled. Attention is paid to the internal diversity of both communities, contrasting the polemical writings of Ahmed Deedat with the liberation theology of Farid Esack, and evangelical apprehension about Islam with the more inclusive outlook of theologians such as John Macquarrie. A discussion of the Trinity and tawhid shows how linguistic and doctrinal misunderstandings have shaped mutual perceptions. The article concludes that the most fruitful model for future relations is that of fellow pilgrims in search of a truth whose full extent neither community has yet grasped, and that sustained, critical and intellectually demanding dialogue remains indispensable, even where it yields no consensus.