Building Respect, Seeking Truth
Teachers for Online Courses
Each course will be headed by a team which will include at least two specialist teachers from our teaching panel
Dr Ida Glaser
Dr Glaser is the Director of CMCS Houston and one of the Founding Fellows of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, where she continues to serve as 'International Academic Coordinator' and to direct the 'Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam' research project. She holds an M.Phil in Theoretical Physics from Imperial College, London and a Ph.D. in comparative theology from the University of Durham. Her publications include The Bible and Other Faiths (2005), Thinking Biblically about Islam (2016), and Reading the Bible in Islamic Context (2018).
Dr Martin Whittingham
Director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies and supernumery research fellow at Regents Park College, Oxford, Dr Whittingham is an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford' where he teaches Islamic Studies and co-convenes seminars on Abrahamic Religions. His research area is the history of Muslim thought about Christianity, and he is currently working on a history of Muslim views of the Bible. He holds master's degrees from the University of Cambridge and London School of Theology, and his PhD from the University of Edinburgh was published as Al-Ghazālī and the Qur’ān: One Book, Many Meanings (2007).
Dr John Azumah
Dr Azumah is the founding executive director of The Sanneh Institute, Accra, Ghana and a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. He obtained a Masters with Distinction in Christian-Muslim Relations and a PhD in the history of Islam in Africa from the University of Birmingham. He has served widely in church agencies and in Muslim-Christian relations world-wide, and has taught in Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India, and London School of Theology and Columbia Theological Seminary, Georgia as well as several Institutions in Ghana. His publications include The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-Religious Dialogue (2001); My Neighbour’s Faith: Islam Explained for Christians (2008); and The African Christian and Islam (2013).
Dr Georgina Jardim
Dr Jardim is responsible for international partnership development at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford. She gained her master's in Islamic Studies from the University of Potchefstroom, South Africa, and her Ph.D. from the University of Gloucestershire, UK. Her doctoral work is published as Recovering the Female Voice in Islamic Scripture: Women and Silence (2014). She has taught in the areas of Islam, Christian-Muslim relations and scriptural engagement in South Africa and the UK, is active in facilitating engagement between ‘everyday’ Christians and Muslims. Her academic research interests are in scriptural reasoning and the intersection of religion and women’s studies
Dr Rana Abu-Mounes
Dr Abu-Mounes is a research fellow at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies. She holds master's degrees from the Universities of Jordan And Aberdeen, and her Ph D on the history of Christian-Muslim interaction in 19th century Damascus was awarded by the University of Aberdeen. Before moving to Oxford, she was Humanitarian Integration Service Manager at Scottish Refugee Council in Dundee. Her current research project is a study of Christian and Muslim responses to the water crisis in Jordan.
Dr David Coffey
Dr Coffey is a founding fellow of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, and is also co-founder of CMCS Houston. He holds master's degree in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Illinois, and a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in the use of admitted truth in the history of Muslim-Christian dialogue, and his doctorate focussed on 19th century India. Dr Coffey has also been involved in Bible translation, in developing theological education in Bangladesh, and in education on the Muslim-Christian interface in the USA.
Dr Charles Ramsey
Dr Ramsey holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Birmingham (UK), a MA in the History of Religion From Baylor University. He was Assistant Professor of Religion and Public Policy at Forman Christian College (Lahore, Pakistan) and then returned to Baylor, where he joined the History Faculty and teaches Indian History. He is editor, South Asia Section of the Brill Encyclopedia of Christian-Muslim Relations (CMR 1500-1900) and his doctoral research is published as Sir Sayyid’s Commentary of the Gospel: Tabyīn al-kalām, Part 3, (2017). His ongoing research interests are in 19th Century South Asia, Sufism, Kashmir, and conflict transformation
Dr Shirin Shafaie
Dr Shafaie holds masters degrees in Philosophy from Iran, and in Middle East Politics and Film and TV from the UK. She completed her doctoral research on ‘Contemporary Iranian War Narratives' at SOAS, University of London, where she has taught Middle East Politics. She is a research fellow at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, as part of the ‘Reading the Bible in the Context of Islam’ project and is currently writing a book on 'Reading Gen. 37- 50 in conversation with Shia Islam'. She is the founder and director of Visual Academics Ltd., an independent film production organisation that helps academics to use video to improve public impact.
Dr Yahya Sabbaghchi
Dr Sabbaghchi is Assistant Professor of Islamic Theology at Center of Islamic Studies and Humanities, Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He holds a PhD in Modern Theology (University of Qom, Iran) and a M.A. in Islamic Philosophy and Theology (University of Qom). He also studied Islamic Jurisprudence and Islamic Mysticism in the Seminary of Qom. He earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering.
His research interests include Islamic and Comparative Theology, Peace studies, Islamic Jurisprudence and Sociology of Religion.
Dr Ghulam Zarquani Qadri
Dr. Zarquani obtained his PhD in Arabic Language and Literature in 2004 from J.M.I University,Delhi, India. He is the esteemed author and compiler of more than 70 books in Arabic, English, and Urdu, and a thought provoking orator. Since 2011, He is also a columnist for Inquilab, the leading Urdu newspaper in India. He is the founder and chairman of Hijaz Foundation of America, Inc., a non-profit organization located in Houston, TX, and is currently the dean of Hijaz Muslim College.
Dr Richard McCallum
Dr McCallum is a sociologist with research interests in religion and society and the contemporary encounter of faith groups. He is a senior fellow of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, where he runs an annual summer school for Christian and Muslim leaders-in-training.
He holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Leicester and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Exeter. His most recent research projects include: Christians and Muslims in Public Life; an evaluation of an inter-faith summer school run by the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme; and a survey of the teaching of Islam in British theological colleges.
Dr Amer al-Hafi
Dr al-Hafi holds an Ph. D. from Al-Zaytoonah University, Tunis and has been Professor of Religious Studies at the Al al-Bayt University in Amman, Jordan, since 1998. He is Consulting Academic Advisor for the Royal Institute of Interfaith Studies, Amman, and a member of the advisory board of the Adian Foundation, Beirut.
He has published both academic and more popular articles which contribute to understanding between Muslims, Christians and Jews, and has impacted interfaith relations through his known TV program, 'The Hour of Love'.
Images of Ida Glaser, Martin Whittingham, Richard McCallum, David Coffey and Georgina Jardim are by John Cairns, Oxford, UK
