Contemporary Western representations of Jesus in Islam

Unknown to many in “Christian” North American society, the person of Jesus is highly revered among the millions of Muslims in the world. This shared reverence for Jesus between Muslims and Christians allows for possible dialogue and greater understanding between adherents of the two religions. Moreover, the renewed interest in scholarship on Jesus, whether historical or theological, allows the Jesus traditions of Islam to become additional sources in this field of scholarship. Given these two reasons, the academic scholar of religion, then, has a motivation to dive into the growing wealth of discussions on the Islamic Jesus in the West. This thesis examines three different areas of Western scholarship on the Islamic Jesus. This is done in effort to discover what affirmations are made about the Islamic Jesus in Western scholarship, and to determine what differences and similarities can be discovered between these three areas. After an introductory chapter, Chapter Two deals with an examination of the representation of Jesus found in die public discourses of Muslim polemicists, by examining the debates and lectures of two polemicists: Ahmed Deedat (South Africa) and Jamal Badawi (Canada). Chapter Three turns to the representations by the academics of religion who study Islam and world religions, who have published introductions to the Islamic religion. Chapter Four then looks at the English translations of the primary Islamic textual sources, the Qur’an and the hadith collections. This is done in light of the affirmations made by the scholars of the previous chapters, pointing out areas that have been passed over or emphasized. Finally, Chapter Five provides some insights and questions for possible future study