Kenneth Cragg – författare

What is happening in Islam is of concern to more than Muslims. The Qur’an is the prime possession of Muslims: how then, are they reading and understanding their sacred Book today? This volume, originally published in 1985, examines eight writers from India, Egypt, Iran and Senegal. Their way with the Qur’an indicates how some in Islam respond to the pressures in life and thought, associated in the West with thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Marx, Camus, Kafka, Jung, Fanon and De Chardin.

What is happening in Islam is of concern to more than Muslims. The Qur’an is the prime possession of Muslims: how then, are they reading and understanding their sacred Book today? This volume, originally published in 1985, examines eight writers from India, Egypt, Iran and Senegal. Their way with the Qur’an indicates how some in Islam respond to the pressures in life and thought, associated in the West with thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Marx, Camus, Kafka, Jung, Fanon and De Chardin.

Centuries before the existence of the Islamic faith, there were Arabs who could be described as Christian. And there has been a Christian Arabism, an Arab Christianity, since Muhammad's day. Arab Christianity has survived Muslin dominance, and this enlightening book takes an in-depth look at its survival.

Originally published in 1973, this volume consists of a sequence of essays in religious thinking, responsive to the impact of Quranic style and emphasis. It traces the implications of the Qur’ān in the related fields of man and history, evil and forgiveness, unity and worship, wonder and the hallowing of the world. It does so with a critical eye for the classical commentators, three of whom are translated here in their exegesis of three important Surahs. The underlying emphasis of this book is inter-religious converse and responsibility in the contemporary world.

Originally published in 1973, this volume consists of a sequence of essays in religious thinking, responsive to the impact of Quranic style and emphasis. It traces the implications of the Qur’ān in the related fields of man and history, evil and forgiveness, unity and worship, wonder and the hallowing of the world. It does so with a critical eye for the classical commentators, three of whom are translated here in their exegesis of three important Surahs. The underlying emphasis of this book is inter-religious converse and responsibility in the contemporary world.

Kenneth Cragg was one of the West’s most gifted interpreters of Islam and one of the most well-known figures of the Middle Eastern Church. During his 45 years in the Middle East, Cragg was an assistant Bishop of Jerusalem and scholar, he focussed on the Christian understanding of other faiths, particularly Islam. A major figure in Christian-Muslim conversations he was a prolific writer whose books became a forum of intellectual debate about Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. This set re-issues two of his lesser-known but no less important books, which illustrate his deep knowledge of the Qur’ān and his lifelong interest in Islamic and Christian theology.

This book is based on the 1967 Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion and discusses the Biblical concept of human dominion and the Qur’anic doctrine of Adam as caliph. It explores the Jewish, Muslim and Christian understanding of man in election, the prophet-state and in grace and sonship.

Can there be genuine sympathy' between the Bible and the Qur'an? Their peoples' have been at odds so long, disputing their texts and discounting their credentials. Scholars from both faiths have contrived intriguing comparison of narratives about Abraham, Joseph or Moses but with little relevance to the contemporary scene and its demand for religious converse and sanity. "A Certain Sympathy of Scriptures" attempts something more central to the essential interest' of both Scriptures, more cogent in this 21st century (the 15th Islam). It is a concern with three shared dimension: The divine will for this cosmos of created order; its entrustment into human hands as creaturely heirs to its order and responsive sciences'; and the discipline of their tenancy and privilege by messengers' and prophethoods disclosing the intention of divine Lordship in the fact of human vocation. These three dimensions are the supreme theme of both Scriptures. This caliphate' of humankind belongs in a now global situation as the abiding reality of Semitic humanism. We are not on our own', but trustees in a sacramental order, neither playthings nor puppets of a bland omnipotence but associates' of the God who willed to create and cared to inform, inspire and invite as such to be. Deep disparities remain between our Scriptures. They have to do with what goes beyond our education', as more than prophethood. They enlarge into all that Jesus fulfilled in Christhood. They involve a truer measure of human perversity and, in turn, a larger expectation concerning the greatness' of God. Yet what divides need not alienate. The mutual ground -- this certain sympathy -- gives hope of wiser recognition of the divine stake in our humanity.

Semitism is a human story of distinctive intimacy with a God, believed to belong with birth, sealed in history and homed in given territory. These three denominators of tribe, territory and remembered time belong to all human identities, understood as one creation in a single cosmos in the Bible and the Qur'an. Anti-Semitism is a tragic misprision of this long conviction of the Judaic mind, bringing endless suffering to the one, shame and guilt to the other. Its effect has been to make 'those counsels dearer' still, whether in Zionist will to recover and rule territory or in a secular diaspora struggling to know itself. Semitism has overtaken itself with the barbarity of a dividing Wall -- a scar across a land allegedly 'beloved above all', by both God and People

Purposeful suicide in contemporary Islam and the deep pathos in its frequency for religious ends is the main impulse to the topic of Faith at Suicide. The Islamic phenomenon needs to be set in a wider context which reckons with suicide's incidence elsewhere, with its uneasy associations in martyrdom and with how it interrogates -- or is interrogated by -- the ethics of religious faith. The enigma of wilful suicide is no less a challenge to sanity or compassion when such faith is absent from the deed or dimly yearned for by it. I am pregnant with my cause', orators may boast. But they were never pregnant with themselves. Our birth was unsolicited on our part. We have all to reach a philosophy about our living, which is perpetually at stake and which we are free to curtail. Dark cynics have said that life is no more than forbearing not to commit suicide. While the sheer mystery of birth demands we disavow all such self-refusal, what then of those who resolve to make it forfeit for an end they must also abdicate in doing so? Selves are banished and betrayed' when weary despair registers what ill-fate itself has done to them. It is more darkly so when the precious human frame, the body's wonder, by self-bombing' encases lethal death in and for and from itself. This book sets out to explain how the issue of suicide belongs with the conscience of Islam today, and how suicide in all circumstances, with or without religious overtones -- be they Islamic or Christian or other faith -- is an inherent contradiction of our common humanity, as expressed in human birth which expressly involves us in mankind.

We do not do God', politicians may say, explaining that theirs is the art of the possible. Some theologians have been reluctant with that plea, whilst practising the art of the assured. But what might God doing God' entail? God' is a relational word involved in human mutuality. With God, doing' is one with being'. There is always a God and ...' situation obtaining: God and the astronomers', God and the tsunami'. Then quickly a God but ...' situation emerges and the wrong' with it. Shakespearean repartee (God's wrong is most of all: if thou didst fear to break an oath with him', Richard III, Act IV, Scene 4), and from Macbeth and King Lear, may help us focus further the inherent discrepancies of approach. Moreover, by long oath-taking tradition we invoke God in verifying verity, putting perjury on the line. What then of this universal guarantor of truth who is, by the same token, for ever blameworthy? Hence the theme of divine capacity' (a wiser term here than omnipotence'). For can there be a deep costliness, a wrong-bearing', on the part of God vis-a-vis the human scene, with its cry for compassion, pardon and redemption? Christian faith has always believed there is and traces it in this gift of habitable earth and more surely, in the Cross of Christ. That Cross, it has been said, is the avowal and acceptance of divine responsibility'. If, in that human scene, love can turn suffering because of into suffering on behalf of, may it not be so with a love divine? Because of' is plainly there in broken faith, angry blasphemy, base injustice, the sins of the world'. Perhaps the other is known for real in the drama where all these, being suffered, were representatively turned to our salvation. That they were, this book explores.

The separate events of Islamic scripture are not difficult to chronicle, but what kind of event does the whole of the Qur'an represent? How should we understand the coming together of a charismtic personality, poetic eloquence, developing Arab consciousness, and a vibrant longing for God, into the single phenomenon of the Qur'an? What is the inner story of the prophethood that Islam regards as God's final revelation for humanity? How did geographical setting, culture and traditions enter into the Qur'an's metaphors and shape its message? These questions are examined in this study of Islam in scripture.

In this study, Cragg attempts to reconcile the importance of Muhammad with the very nature of the Christian faith.

A highly acclaimed introduction to the figure of Jesus from a Muslim perspective, this book illuminates the unity and division between the Islamic and Christian faiths.

Compiled by a pioneer in interfaith dialogue, this is an unprecedented anthology of Christian and Muslim devotional writings. Bringing together prayers written in some twenty original languages and from thirty different countries, Bishop Cragg’s inspirational anthology underlines the spiritual compatibility of the Muslim and Christian faiths. Beautifully designed and simple to use, this is an accessible, diverse and unique compilation for communal life or personal reflection.

Taking the Muslim call to prayer as his starting point, the author unravels the significance of the muezzin's haunting cry, considering prophethood, prayer, politics and community to present a more complete understanding of Islam. It becomes clear that the Islamic call to prayer transcends the boundaries of religion, containing a summons for Christians and Muslims alike. Bringing new perspective to interfaith relations, this revealing book with appeal to the faithful throughout the world.

This book argues that theism has always understood the divine as awaiting human cognisance and worship.

Biblical ethics and eloquence reached a pinnacle with the great writing Prophets. Prophethood has also been central to Islam. Muhammad, its final messenger, is coupled with Allah in the Islamic faith, through confession or Shahadah. Is it proper, or feasible, to bring these two realms together, separated as they are by more than ten centuries? Many in each community of faith would disapprove. Yet there are clear common denominators the central role of personality; the mystery of language and inspiration; the bearing of circumstance and situation; and, through all these, the incidence of suffering. Among the Biblical Prophets, a basic descriptive for their vocation and meaning is the sense of burden. The title of the book is taken from Surah 73.5 of the Quran where Muhammad understands that he is to undergo the onset of a a heavy saying, or a weighty word. Exploration of this mutual theme leads to common features. While the weight Quran-wise is the obligation to give divine words perfect reproduction; for the Biblical Prophets the onus is more inherently personal, and is reflected in the essential loneliness of vocation. The Weight in the Word attempts to explore an alignment of Prophethood in the Bible and in Islam in one denominator, against the odds of mutual alienation. In the Quran, God and Messenger represent the dual unity of creed and command; for Christian theology, via Messiah crucified, the theology of Prophethood is found in knowing the Weight in the Word by the wounds in the soul, and the Word made flesh.

This book aims to meet the needs of non-Muslims who wish to discover the beauty and meaning of this great religious work.

This study explores the taxing question of whether Christ-Learning should be an ongoing process by presenting examples of the critical and personal learning undertaken by minds exercised with scholarship, ecclesiology, poetry, the novel and sexuality. While the responses to faith in Christ of the seven chosen figures Richard Hooker, John Henry Newman, Robert Browning, William Faulkner, Rudyard Kipling, Friedrich Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde are highly personal, it is the theme of "education", which was at the heart of every Messianic achievement, that throws up confrontations to the orthodox approach to faith. These individuals are eminently representative of biography wrestling with what the New Testament Scripture first understood. Their experiences can be signified in a New Testament play on words: "emathen apathen" "suffering they learned, learning they suffered".

The pronoun is the very mother tongue of thought. Family and race, nation and society, the clamant us and ours of collectives, resolve into I and singular You, the transacting pronouns of all human discourse. Pro-nouns are well styled, for they function on behalf of rights, claims, dignities and demands. Acquisitive and discursive, they transact the business of existence. It follows that pronouns are the essence of religion: their usages dictate the liability of religious faith. Their handling is a sure clue to the idiom of creed or ritual. If the web is society, then the speaking faiths of pronouns I, we, us, ours, they, thou, you, them come into their own in our keyboard encounters. Extending the metaphor, the net allows pronouns to intercept meaning, and to substitute for lack of clarity in argument and understanding. Insofar as religions as grammars provides a proper analogy, Faiths in Their Pronouns aims to explore their pronounal internet in hope of wiser courtesy and surer mutual discovery, a hope that is well captured in the face and hands of Raphaels etching.

Biblical ethics and eloquence reached a pinnacle with the great writing Prophets. Prophethood has also been central to Islam. Muhammad, its final messenger, is coupled with Allah in the Islamic faith, through confession or Shahadah. Is it proper, or feasible, to bring these two realms together, separated as they are by more than ten centuries? Many in each community of faith would disapprove. Yet there are clear common denominators the central role of personality; the mystery of language and inspiration; the bearing of circumstance and situation; and, through all these, the incidence of suffering. Among the Biblical Prophets, a basic descriptive for their vocation and meaning is the sense of burden. The title of the book is taken from Surah 73.5 of the Quran where Muhammad understands that he is to undergo the onset of a a heavy saying, or a weighty word. Exploration of this mutual theme leads to common features. While the weight Quran-wise is the obligation to give divine words perfect reproduction; for the Biblical Prophets the onus is more inherently personal, and is reflected in the essential loneliness of vocation. The Weight in the Word attempts to explore an alignment of Prophethood in the Bible and in Islam in one denominator, against the odds of mutual alienation. In the Quran, God and Messenger represent the dual unity of creed and command; for Christian theology, via Messiah crucified, the theology of Prophethood is found in knowing the Weight in the Word by the wounds in the soul, and the Word made flesh.