3QB4 Gospels in Islamic Context

The Gospels in Islamic Context

Spring 2026

January 12th - March 30th

Mondays 0800-1000 Houston time

Course leaders: Dr Ida Glaser and Dr Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour

Students who wish to obtain CMCS Houston credit for this course are required to complete the first four modules of our 'Research and Writing for Muslim & Christian Studies' prior to the start of the course. This course may be begun at any time - students are advised to begin as soon as possible.

The course cost is $400, reduced to $150 for auditing and majority world students.

CMCS Houston has full and half-scholarships available. To apply for a scholarship, email a letter of application together with your c.v. and contact details of two referees to office@cmcshouston.org.

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Open bible with the gospel of mark is vi

This course is based on the book The Gospels in Islamic Context: form and function edited by Georgina Jardim, Ida Glaser and Shirin Shafaie. Week by week, participants will read and discuss set papers from the book. We will also invite authors to join the discussions of their papers.

We will also read through Mark’s Gospel, guided by Dr Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour, who is currently writing an Islamic commentary on Mark as part of the 'Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam' Project at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford. Students will be allocated to discussion groups for further study of the Mark texts between classes.

This course aims to equip Muslims and Christians to read and understand the canonical Gospels with each other’s world-views in mind. Christian participants will learn to appreciate Muslim insights into and questions about the Gospels and their nature, and will take these questions into account as they read. Muslims participants will both embark on a journey of reading the Gospels from their own perspectives and learn to appreciate Christian understandings of the Gospels.

Objectives

By the end of this course students will be able to:

Compare Christian and Islamic views of the nature of the Gospels
Compare the canonical Gospel accounts of Jesus with Islamic accounts of Jesus
Identify questions raised by Muslim readers of the canonical Gospels and give an account of the answers given to those questions by Christian readers
Analyse and discuss academic papers
Give an account of the structure and themes of Mark’s Gospel

Contents of The Gospels in Islamic Context:

The injil and the gospels: meaning and status

Good News: Greek euangelion, Arabic ʾinjīl and modern Qurʾan and Bible translations in Islamic Contexts, Andy Warren-Rothlin

What are the Gospels? A Christian reflection, Ida Glaser

Balaaghi and the Canonical Gospels, Yahya Sabbaghchi

Authenticating the New Testament Gospels from a Sunni Perspective, Ali Ataie

Islamic literature on Jesus: where are the canonical gospels?

Biblical allusions in Persian literature: Persian poets in the footsteps of the Christian tradition, Mohammad Hossein Naraghi

A Colloquy of God with Jesus: Origins and composition of the earliest collection of the sayings of Jesus in Islam, Farhad Ghoddoussi

Translation: words in context

The First Gospel in Arabic: The Islamic context, Andrew Persson

Kitab Suci Injil: An Indonesian-Greek diglot Gospel and its significance for reading the Matthean nativity story in the Indonesian Islamic context, Ferry Mamahit:

Birth narratives: a shared story?

The Virgin Mary’s Birth and Early Life in Three Narratives: New Testament, Qur’an and biblical Apocrypha, Nasim Hassani

Redeeming Zechariah: Silence as mercy in Luke 1 and Surahs 3 and 19. Maria Barga

Signs: a shared category?

Revisiting Jesus’ Gospel Miracles in the Light of Medieval Muslim Critique, Laura Hassan

Signs of God in the Qur’an and the Gospel of John: persuading the audience to believe, Georgina Jardim

Barzakh and Paradise: a shared concept?

The Qur’an and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Abdula Galadari

‘Today You will be with Me in Paradise’: Reading Luke 23:43 in Islamic context, Duncan Peters

Reading in context

Respecting Mary, Carol Walker

Contesting the Meaning of the Sheep and the Goats: Variations on Contemporary Indonesian Christians’ Readings of Matthew 25: 31-46, Hans Harmakaputra

Reading the Sermon on the Mount

By Whose Authority? Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the authors of the Christian New Testament, Charles Ramsey

The Sermon on the Mount Reading Group, Georgina Jardim