This thesis aims at studying the life, works and thought of Louis Massignon and at demonstrating how they find their unity in the God of Abraham. It is not a chronological study but a study of the principal themes of his works, following the pattern he often used -- the five pillars of Islamic religious and social life: alms giving which includes the respect of the guest and his word, prayer seen under the aspect of intercession, pilgrimage, sacrifice exemplified in fasting and a witness to faith in the Judgment of God. In chapter VI an attempt is made to study the evolution of the thought of Massignon from 1914 to 1947 concerning some aspects of the Christian-Mus1im encounter which, for him, points to the Judgment.

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D.Litt et Phil. (Semitic Languages and Cultures) / This thesis is an examination of “interfaith praxis” in the South African struggle for liberation, with particular emphasis on Muslim-Christian relations. We begin with an overview of the epistemological and theological contribution of “praxis” in European and subaltern contexts of liberation theology as well as the key dynamics of representation, conditionality and transformative activism in the history of Muslim-Christian relations. We then analyze and contrast “two histories” of Muslim-Christian relations in South Africa: one of Orientalism and the other of interfaith praxis. Through a close examination of two organizations - the Call of Islam (est. 1984) and the South African Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (est. 1984) - we argue that interfaith praxis changed how Muslims and Christians in the struggle approached interfaith dialogue and theological reflections on the religious other. It was this interfaith praxis that contributed to the importance of religious pluralism in contemporary South Africa. Following through from the history and reflections on interfaith praxis, we suggest here the possibility for a new framework for Muslim-Christian relations called a Liberatio-Political Framework.

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The conflict in Sudan reflects historic hatred and ethnic discrimination between Northern Arab Muslims and Southern African Christians and Animists. The longest and worst conflict began in 1983 and ended in 2005, when African Christians and Animists struggled to form an interim autonomous government. This conflict claimed 2 million lives from both sides and displaced almost 4 million people from the South. This thesis attempts to understand how people from Southern Sudan perceive the root causes and sustaining factors of the Sudanese conflict between Arab Muslims and African Christians. This research looks specifically into the roles of ethnic differences and religion. In this study, 10 emigrants from South Sudan were chosen to present their perceptions and views about the conflict, in the form of written responses to 22 questions. Analysis of their responses in light of conflict resolution literature suggests that the North-South Sudan conflict involves complex issues primarily fueled by ethnic and religious differences. This research reveals that South Sudanese refugees from varying backgrounds and professions expressed similar experiences of racial, religious discrimination and political and economic marginalization, and suggests that Sudan's July, 2011 declaration of independence, creating two separate nations, North and South Sudan, was a positive solution to achieving a just peace.

The subject of this thesis is the theology of the late 13th- early 14th century churchman 'Abdisho' bar Brikha. Better known by modern scholars for his poetry and canon law, he is far less recognised as a religious controversialist who composed works in Arabic as well as Syriac to answer Muslim criticisms. My overall argument contends that 'Abdisho''s hitherto neglected theological works are critical to our understanding of how anti-Muslim apologetics had by his time become central to his Church's articulation of a distinct Christian identity in a largely non-Christian environment. 'Abdisho' wrote his apologetic theology at a time when Christians experienced increasing hardship under the rule of the Mongol Ilkhans, who had officially converted to Islam in 1295. While the gradual hardening of attitudes towards Christians may well have informed 'Abdisho''s defensive stance, this thesis also demonstrates that his theology is built on a genre of apologetics that emerged as early as the mid-8th century. Our author compiles and systematises earlier debates and authorities from this tradition while updating them for a current authorship. In doing so, he contributes to the formation of a theological canon that would remain authoritative for centuries to come. My analysis of 'Abdisho''s oeuvre extends to three doctrinal themes: the Trinity, the Incarnation, and devotional practices (viz. the veneration of the Cross and the striking of the church clapper). I situate his discussion of these topics in a period when Syriac Christian scholarship was marked by a familiarity with Arabo-Islamic theological and philosophical models. While our author does not engage with these models as closely as his better-known Syriac Christian contemporary Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286), he nevertheless appeals to a literary and theological idiom common to both Muslims and Christians in order to convince his coreligionists of their faith's reasonableness against centuries-long polemical attacks.

This study endeavors to set Christian writing about Islam from the period of the Islamic expansion in the broader context of Christian theological development in Late Antiquity. To this end, this study traces elements of continuity in Christian thought from the Christological debates of the fifth and sixth century, particularly from the Council of Chalcedon in 451and the resulting emergence of the communities of Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonian Monophysites as the dominant strands of Christianity in the Near East at the rise of Islam. In order to understand how Christians began to integrate the Islamic expansion into their thinking, this study focuses particularly on Christian writings about Islam and the descriptions of Muslims in Christian writings from the rise of lslam, through the seventh and early eighth centuries, up to the Abbasid revolution in 750. It also considers the contemporary descriptions of Christians in the Qur'an, in order to illustrate that these descriptions have both a different starting point and a different focus, suggesting that both Christian discussions about Muslims and Muslim discussions about Christians were internal discussions, taking place within each tradition, and do not represent true inter-religious dialogue. In this way, this study attempts to illustrate how the rise of lslam, the emergence of the caliphate and the resulting separation of the Near Eastern churches from the Christian hierarchy in Rome and Constantinople influenced Christian identity in the Near East. The writings of the seventh century, and the Christian identity they preserve, emerge as a hybrid, integrating elements of the competing, pre-Islamic concerns of doctrinal purity versus church unity, but also attempting to address, in a variety of ways, the initial fear over Muslim victory and the eventual acceptance of Muslim rule as the new status quo in the Near East.

The boundaries of normative Islam are critically explored in this thesis, which presents a translation of the most important aspects of a modern study on bid‘ah (heretical innovation), by the late Egyptian Reformist Scholar, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazālī (1917 – 1996). The translator’s introduction contextualizes the life and work of the author and also briefly locates this particular study within the broader framework of classical and contemporary writings on the subject of bid‘ah. Only the book’s introduction, first three chapters (constituting the theoretical spine of the original work), and conclusion are translated. The first chapter is an introductory excursus into Islamic law, necessary to enable the reader to grasp the legal debate on bid‘ah. The second chapter casts a wider net, examining the influence of foreign elements upon Islamic thought, while the third chapter deals specifically with the topic of bid‘ah. The short conclusion reaffirms the importance of normative Islamic practice. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Arabic)

The boundaries of normative Islam are critically explored in this thesis, which presents a translation of the most important aspects of a modern study on bid‘ah (heretical innovation), by the late Egyptian Reformist Scholar, Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazālī (1917 – 1996). The translator’s introduction contextualizes the life and work of the author and also briefly locates this particular study within the broader framework of classical and contemporary writings on the subject of bid‘ah. Only the book’s introduction, first three chapters (constituting the theoretical spine of the original work), and conclusion are translated. The first chapter is an introductory excursus into Islamic law, necessary to enable the reader to grasp the legal debate on bid‘ah. The second chapter casts a wider net, examining the influence of foreign elements upon Islamic thought, while the third chapter deals specifically with the topic of bid‘ah. The short conclusion reaffirms the importance of normative Islamic practice. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Arabic)