David D. Grafton – författare

How should people of other faiths approach Islam’s sacred text? For many, it remains unfamiliar, filtered through soundbites, polemics, or narrow assumptions. David Grafton offers a fresh method for engaging with the text Muslims regard as divine revelation. His “appreciative reading” approach encourages readers to encounter the scripture of Islam on its own terms, listen carefully to its message, and use that engagement as an opportunity for deeper self-reflection.Grafton begins with a survey of how the text has been read by outsiders throughout history, noting how inherited assumptions often limit understanding or lead to misinterpretation. He then introduces readers to its distinctive structure and arrangement, so unlike the narrative arc of the Bible, and explores the beauty and complexity of its Arabic style—features that resist perfect translation yet are central to Muslim devotion.Through close readings of key passages, including the opening prayer, the Garden narrative, and depictions of Jesus (‘Isa), Grafton demonstrates how these selections can challenge stereotypes, expand theological horizons, and invite honest dialogue. Along the way, he highlights the parallels between translation issues in Islam’s scripture and those in the Bible, underscoring the value of thoughtful interpretation.With clarity, humility, and a deep respect for both traditions, Grafton provides scholars, clergy, students, and interested readers with the tools to engage Islam’s revelation in a way that fosters understanding rather than division. Complete with a glossary of Arabic terms and recommended resources from Muslim scholars, this book is an indispensable guide for anyone committed to building bridges across religious boundaries.

How should people of other faiths approach Islam’s sacred text? For many, it remains unfamiliar, filtered through soundbites, polemics, or narrow assumptions. David Grafton offers a fresh method for engaging with the text Muslims regard as divine revelation. His “appreciative reading” approach encourages readers to encounter the scripture of Islam on its own terms, listen carefully to its message, and use that engagement as an opportunity for deeper self-reflection.Grafton begins with a survey of how the text has been read by outsiders throughout history, noting how inherited assumptions often limit understanding or lead to misinterpretation. He then introduces readers to its distinctive structure and arrangement, so unlike the narrative arc of the Bible, and explores the beauty and complexity of its Arabic style—features that resist perfect translation yet are central to Muslim devotion.Through close readings of key passages, including the opening prayer, the Garden narrative, and depictions of Jesus (‘Isa), Grafton demonstrates how these selections can challenge stereotypes, expand theological horizons, and invite honest dialogue. Along the way, he highlights the parallels between translation issues in Islam’s scripture and those in the Bible, underscoring the value of thoughtful interpretation.With clarity, humility, and a deep respect for both traditions, Grafton provides scholars, clergy, students, and interested readers with the tools to engage Islam’s revelation in a way that fosters understanding rather than division. Complete with a glossary of Arabic terms and recommended resources from Muslim scholars, this book is an indispensable guide for anyone committed to building bridges across religious boundaries.

Uncovers what Christian seminaries taught about Islam in their formative yearsThroughout the nineteenth century, Islam appeared regularly in the curricula of American Protestant seminaries. Islam was not only the focus of Christian missions, but was studied as part of the history of the Church as well as in the new field of comparative religions. Moreover, Arabic was taught as a cognate biblical language to help students better understand biblical Hebrew. Passages from the Qur'an were sometimes read as part of language instruction.Christian seminaries were themselves new institutions in the nineteenth century. Though Islam had already been present in the Americas since the beginning of the slave trade, it was only in the nineteenth century that the American public became more aware of Islam and had increasing contact with Muslims. It was during this period that extensive trade with the Ottoman empire emerged and more feasible travel opportunities to the Middle East became available due to the development of the steamship. Providing an in-depth look at the information about Islam that was available in seminaries throughout the nineteenth century, Muhammad in the Seminary examines what Protestant seminaries were teaching about this tradition in the formative years of pastoral education. In charting how American Christian leaders' ideas about Islam were shaped by their seminary experiences, this volume offers new insight into American religious history and the study of Christian-Muslim relations.

From the time of Martin Luther''s writing of On War Against the Turk in 1529 to American Lutheran military chaplains serving in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Lutheranism has had a symbiotic relationship with Islam in the Middle East, framed across cultural and religious borders. There have been those who have crossed these borders to engage in mission and dialogue. In Piety, Politics, and Power, David Grafton examines the origins of the American Lutheran missionary movement in the Middle East, with a focus on its encounter with Muslims and the varied Lutheran theological responses toward Islam. The narrative is placed within historical contexts to provide an overarching background of Middle Eastern history and Christian-Muslim Relations. The survey covers Lutheran missionary communities in Persia, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the work of the Lutherans working for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries, the Anglican Church Missionary Society, the Lutheran Orient Mission, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Whether enthusiastic Pietists seeking the conversion of Muslims and Jews; cautious theologians in dialogue with Islam, Judaism, or Oriental Orthodoxy; or social activists working on behalf of refugees in Egypt and the West Bank, Grafton argues that these Christian missionaries were all enmeshed in the politics of the communities in which they lived, and either contributed to or suffered from the realities of Middle Eastern and international politics. Given the current reality of Pax Americana in the Middle East, the author asks the driving question about the role of American Lutheran missions and Lutheran-Middle Eastern Muslim dialogue in the age of American power in the Middle East.

Islamophobia continues to rise among Americans even within progressive mainline churches, creating a poisonous and dangerous atmosphere for interfaith relations. American Lutherans, however, have been engaged in dialogue with Islam for over a generation. Originally, like other Protestant churches, Lutherans studied Islam as a monolithic religious system for the purpose of proselytizing the Christian faith. Over the years and with experience, American Lutherans came to know Islam as a faith tradition of believers in different cultures and contexts. By developing relationships with Muslim neighbors, some ELCA Lutherans and their international partners have learned that it is possible to witness to the Christian faith and listen to Muslim neighbors for the purpose of understanding and to work for a common cause of justice. More Than a Cup of Coffee and Tea documents the "Focus on Islam" that began in the 1980s among ELCA Lutherans and then reflects on more than a generation of engagement with Muslims in various domestic and international contexts. This volume documents where the ELCA has been, what it has learned, and encourages others to continue to develop positive relationships with Muslim neighbors and communities as a Christian activity and to combat Islamophobia.

An American Biblical Orientalism: The Construction of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Nineteenth-Century American Evangelical Piety examines the life and work of Eli Smith, William McClure Thomson, and Edward Robinson and their descriptions of the “Bible Lands.” While there has been a great deal written about American travelogues to the Holy Lands, this book focuses on how these three prominent American Protestants described the indigenous peoples, and how those images were consumed by American Christians who had little direct experience with the “Bible Lands.” David D. Grafton argues that their publications (Biblical Researches, Later Biblical Researches, and The Land and the Book) profoundly impacted the way that American Protestants read and interpreted the Bible in the late-nineteenth century. The descriptions and images of the people found their way into American Bible dictionaries, theological dictionaries, and academic and religious circles of a growing bible readership in North America. Ultimately, the people of late Ottoman society (e.g. Jews, Christians and Muslims) were essentialized as the living characters of the Bible. These peoples were fitted into categories as heroes or villains from biblical stories, and rarely seen as modern people in their own right. Thus, in the words of Edward Said, they were “orientalized."