The History of Evangelicals Teaching Islam in an Increasingly Secular Age

This chapter chronicles the history of how Evangelicals have engaged in the scholarly study of Islam and Muslim communities. Evangelical government officials such as William Muir and missionaries such as Edward Sell, T. P. Hughes, and E. M. Wherry in nineteenth-century India took the lead in this endeavor as they encountered Muslims and sought to understand that experience within the context of the study of traditional Islamic texts. They published the results of their scholarship in introductory texts on Islam intended for a Western audience. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Samuel Zwemer and W. H. T. Gairdner established a study center in Cairo to train missionaries in the Arabic language and Islamic thought in preparation for ministry. A similar center established in South Asia, the Henry Martyn Institute, evolved throughout the twentieth century from a focus on confrontation to one of conversation and dialogue. Evangelical colleges in North America can draw on this diverse history of scholarship while seeking to prepare their students for the increasingly pluralistic culture in which they are located.