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

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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.