In 2002 in a Chicago mosque, a Sufi preacher insisted in the middle of the USA’s responses to 9/11, that Muslims must be different, drawing on the famous prophetic hadith ‘Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them’. This left author Youshaa Patel pondering: ‘how different and with regard to what?’ This book, reviewed by Dr Philip Lewis, is an illuminating and frequently surprising historical overview of how this imitation hadith has been variously interpreted across Sunni Muslim history. It concludes with an epilogue, in which Patel uses this history to find resources to help Muslims live well as a religious minority in America today. Lewis finds it to be an ambitious yet refreshing read.

If Christians assume from the title of this book that it might only be of interest to Muslims, the reviewer, Rev Colin Chapman, can think of reasons why Christians also might be interested …

In the heat of the 1989 controversy surrounding the publication of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses , Shabbir Akhtar, who was then working in race relations in Bradford UK, published the first edition of this book defending and explaining Muslim indignation at the affront caused. In the aftermath of yet more free-speech controversy, this time connected with the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Akhtar published this second edition with a lengthy new preface. Following the 2022 attack on Rushdie, Dwight Swanson reviews Akhtar’s arguments.

This book is passionate about encouraging Christians to combat anti-Muslim prejudice and to stand in solidarity with Muslims against hatred and injustice. Although it is written in the context of the United States, there is much here for Christians in other parts of the world to learn.

It’s not often that a doctoral thesis can be so eminently readable and draw readers into the investigation as well as any whodunnit! This was Colin Chapman’s comment after reading Abu-Mounes’ book exploring the events around the 1860s Damascus riots, which are still part of the collective memory of many Christians in Lebanon and Syria today. He believes that the book draws out three important lessons for us today as we look at similar issues around the world which are seemingly religiously motivated.

One of today’s most influential Evangelical scholars of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, Dr Martin Accad, provides an opportunity for Western readers to encounter a scholarly Arab Evangelical approach to Islam. Accad writes out of deep personal experience of Muslim-Christian conflict in his native Lebanon, where he is involved in peace and reconciliation initiatives alongside academic work. However, this emphasis on context and praxis is not accompanied, as is often the case, by a downplaying of theology. On the contrary, the author focuses on precisely the controversial questions over which Muslims and Christians have traditionally disagreed, while approaching them in ways that seek to reach across the Christian-Muslim divide rather than widening it.