Table of Contents
Preface to the second edition vii
Mote on transliteration and dates viii
Chronology ix
Map 1 The Christian and Muslim worlds c. 830/215 46
Map 2 The Christian and Muslim worlds today 158-9
Introduction 1
1 The Christian background to the coming of Islam 5
Early Christian thinking about other religions 5
The history of the Christian Church in the Middle East 11
2 The Islamic impact 17
Muhammad's contacts with Christians 17
The Qur'an's view of Christians 21
Precedents for Muslim treatment of Christians 26
3 The first age of Christian-Muslim interaction (-c. 830/215) 30
Christian responses to the coming of Islam 30
Muslim treatment of Christians I 37
4 The medieval period I: confrontation or interaction in the East? 45
Contacts and exchanges 45
Developing mutual perceptions 50
Muslim treatment of Christians II 59
Conversion to Islam 61
5 The medieval period II: confrontation or interaction in the West? 71
Western Christian reactions to the coming of Islam 71
The Crusades 75
Alternative perceptions of Islam 83
The transmission of knowledge from the Islamic world to the West 87
6 The changing balance of power: mission and imperialism? 98
The growth of European power 98
The establishment of Christian missions 101
The heyday of European influence 111
Muslim responses 114
7 New thinking in the nineteenth/thirteenth and twentieth/fourteenth centuries 127
The growth of Western academic study of Islam 127
Changing Christian thinking about Islam 133
Changing Muslim thinking about Christianity 141
8 Dialogue or confrontation? 157
The Dialogue movement 157
The political context 166
Fellow-pilgrims? 167
9 The twenty-first/fifteenth century 176
Confrontational approaches 176
Collaborative approaches 190
Conclusion 203
Bibliography 213
Index 215
