Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 1800-1914 (CMR 1914)

Reports about relations between Christians and Muslims appear in the news every day, whether atrocities inflicted on Christians and their churches by so-called Islamic State and their affiliates in North and West Africa, or complaints in Western societies that Muslims are destroying the culture. When they refer to each other, both often employ inaccurate and exaggerated language that reflects attitudes inherited from many centuries past. Christian-Muslim Relations 1800-1914 (CMR 1914) is about these attitudes and the ways in which they have persisted and developed.

The history of relations between Islam and Christianity stretches over 1400 years. Followers of the faiths have lived together from the beginning and have sometimes benefited one another greatly, as in 9th century Baghdad where works were translated from Greek into Arabic by Christians for Muslims, though they have more often defamed and attacked one another, as most dramatically in the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries and in the Ottoman incursions into Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, which were seen as representing attacks by one faith on the other. CMR 1914 seeks both to discover what was actually said and to explore what was popularly accepted about the other. It is a continuation of two earlier AHRC-funded projects that traced the history in all parts of the world from 600 to 1500 and 1500 to 1800, and will take the story forward to the beginning of the 20th century. It comprises four elements.

The first is to compile a detailed history of all the known writings by Christians and Muslims about and against one another in the period 1800-1914. For this Bibliographical History, five international teams, each focusing on a major region of the world, will bring together accounts of the works written in their region, commissioning expert contributors to write detailed analytical entries on particular authors and their works. Each entry will include information about the author, the contents of their work and its significance, and full details about its publication and the studies written on it. In this way, each entry will give a comprehensive account of a work, and the compilation into a connected history will place each in the wider sweep of Christian-Muslim relations. The result will be a multi-volume history in unprecedented detail of the development of Christian-Muslim relations between 1800 and 1914. It will give readers access to a wide range of information that in the past has been restricted to specialists possessing the necessary language skills.

The second element uses this Bibliographical History to trace the main images and attitudes that have become accepted in the portrayal of the other, bedevilling efforts to move away from old ways of relating. These include Christian disparagement of Muhammad and accusations of lax Muslim morality, and Muslim condemnations of Christian doctrine and scripture. A group of international scholars will be invited to draw on the entries from the bibliographical history of the 600-1900 period to write essays on the main themes discernible in Christian-Muslim history. The result will be a Thematic History of images and attitudes held by Christians and Muslims from the 7th to the 20th century.

The third element is a Reader of illustrative excerpts from the most important works in the shared history. This will comprise short excerpts taken from the main works analysed in the Bibliographical History, selected from all periods and geographical regions and arranged in thematic groupings. It will enable readers to gain first-hand awareness of what was thought and said.

The fourth element is a General History that offers a simplified account taken from the two other histories, illustrated with excerpts taken from the Reader.

This project, combining basic research with non-technical syntheses, places the topic on a new footing and offers prospects for new development.

Christian-Muslim Relations 1800-1914 will produce four outputs: a multi-volume Bibliographical History of works written by Christians and Muslims against the other faith and about it in the period 1800-1914, a Thematic History of attitudes traceable through the works treated in the Bibliographical History, a Reader of representative excerpts from major works in the history, and a slim General History. The Bibliographical History will be published in four or more print volumes, the Thematic History in one or more print volumes, the Reader in one or more volumes, and the General History as a paperback. The Bibliographical and Thematic Histories will be published in print and online by Brill, and the two other works by a more general publisher.

The Bibliographical History is a resource that will primarily benefit researchers in the fields of Christian-Muslim relations, religious history, politics, and cultural studies. It brings together for the first time detailed analytical accounts of all works in Christian-Muslim relations, and gives information about manuscripts, editions and translations, and studies. It is intended to pave the way for further intensive research that will link together works in different languages and from different cultures, so that the history of engagements between the two faiths can be accurately explored on the basis of what was actually thought and written. As a marker of the stages in a detailed history of engagement between the two faiths, it prepares the way for Muslims and Christians in the UK and elsewhere to map the journey they have followed in attempting to approach one another, and to understand why relations are often beleaguered by misapprehensions.

The Thematic History will build on this Bibliographical History for a broader academic readership. It focuses on a series of themes and attitudes that first emerged in the early centuries of at best competitive and often hostile encounters between followers of the two faiths, and were developed into accepted attitudes as time went on. Among these are Muslim portrayals of Christian beliefs in three gods and of the Bible as textually corrupt, and Christian portrayals of the Qur'an as a pastiche of the Bible and of the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Less obvious, though more insidious themes are Muslim opinions of Christians as malicious and irrational, and Christian opinions of Muslims as sexually lax. By identifying these and other attitudes, and showing how as time moved on they became received wisdom and were transmitted throughout the world, the Thematic History will go some considerable way in providing explanations for such attitudes as Islamophobia among people in the West, and hostility among people in the Islamic world towards all that is Western. It will serve as a fundamental resource in explaining the basis of social attitudes between the wider and Muslim communities in UK, not least the reason why suspicion is usually a leading characteristic.

The Reader will give substance to the Bibliographical and Thematic Histories by illustrating through extracts from primary works (all translated into English) the ways in which Christians and Muslims have portrayed and approached each other. It will help non-specialists to appreciate the empathy that has sometimes been reached, and the antipathy that has more often been expressed.

The General History, a slimmed-down version of the two other histories with selected extracts from the Reader, will provide a short single-volume history of relations and an analysis of attitudes. It will be aimed at general readers as an aid to understanding the shared history and its consequences.

These four elements will be of interest to historians and specialists in cultural studies, and to those concerned to expose the causes of inter-religious antagonism. It will inform the thinking of advisers on UK domestic policy, and will be relevant to specialists in international relations.