A Muslim Interpretation of the Christian Gospels

Muslims have always recognized the Gospels, or Injil, as a holy book. But for most of Islamic history, such recognition was more theoretical than practical, with the Gospels discussed in the abstract than actually read. After all, Muslim scholars studied Arabic, not the Greek or Syriac in which copies of the New Testament were available to them. However, the 19th century saw European Christian missionaries make the Gospels far more widely available to Muslims by printing translations in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and other languages. Among the learned Muslim who responded was one of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the modern era: Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98). In this episode, we explore what motivated him to write a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew in his Urdu work, Tabyin al-Kalam (Elucidation of the Word); how he understood the Christian scripture as a Muslim; and how he used his newfound knowledge of the Injil to argue for the consistency of Muslim and Christian beliefs. Nile Green talks to Charles Ramsey, co-translator of Sir Sayyid’s Commentary of the Gospel: Tabyīn al-Kalām, Part 3 (Brill and Maktaba Jadid, 2017).