This book offers a timely and critical resource for addressing the challenges of engaging Islam in contemporary academic and ecclesial contexts. It traces the liberal genealogy of Orientalism and the persistence of Islamophobia, demonstrating how these frameworks continue to shape Christian approaches to Islam and ChristianMuslim relations. By calling for the decolonization of Islamic Studies, the book urges Christians to move beyond reductive and monolithic representations of Islam and to attend seriously to the internal diversity of Islamic traditions and lived realities of Muslim societies. In doing so, it provides a historically grounded and ethically responsible framework for educators, scholars, and religious leaders seeking to cultivate a respectful understanding of Islamic traditions and meaningful relationships with Muslim communities in increasingly plural societies. Beyond Orientalism: Decolonizing Christian Approaches to Islam and Engagement with Muslims is especially relevant for scholars in Islamic Studies and inter-faith engagement who wish to reflect on the implications of post-Orientalist approaches to Islam in a global context shaped by migration, securitization, and evolving religious identities.
Chapter
1. Introduction.
Chapter
2. Islam as the Illiberal
MirrorOrientalism and the Protestant Construction of Islam.
Chapter
3. The
Civilizing Mission: Erasing Muslim Traditions and Imposing Colonial
Modernity.
Chapter
4. Islamophobia and the Postcolonial Condition:
Rethinking Christian Engagement in a Liberal World Order.
Chapter
5. Beyond
Essentialism: Islam as a Discursive Tradition.
Chapter
6. Embodied
Traditions: Approaching Islam as a Lived Faith.
Chapter
7. Toward Respectful
Understanding and Witness Among Muslims.
Dr. Jose Abraham is an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. His academic work engages the intersections of religious studies, global Christianity, and postcolonial theory, with particular attention to how religious traditions are formed, interpreted, and encountered under conditions of modernity and global exchange. He received his PhD from the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal, where his research examined socio-religious reform movements among the Mappila Muslims of Kerala, South India, during the colonial period. His doctoral dissertation was subsequently published as Islamic Reform and Colonial Discourse on Modernity in India: Socio-Political and Religious Thought of Vakkom Moulavi (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Before joining Fuller, Abraham taught at United Theological College, Bangalore, India, and Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He is an ordained minister of the Indian Pentecostal Church of God (IPC) and is committed to equipping churches for biblically grounded, historically informed, and constructive engagement with Muslims and people of other faiths in both local and global contexts.
