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Document Details :

Title: Muhammad, Christ and Modern Consciences
Author(s): LEIRVIK Oddbjørn
Journal: Studies in Interreligious Dialogue
Volume: 18    Issue: 2   Date: 2008   
Pages: 129-152
DOI: 10.2143/SID.18.2.2033318

Abstract :
This article, which is based on a wider study of the concept of conscience in the works of modern Muslim intellectuals in Egypt, shows how contemporary images of Jesus and Muhammad may be linked to distinctively modern discourses about human conscience. In the works of ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad and Khalid Muhammad Khalid (from the late 1940s to the beginning of the 1960s), Jesus and Muhammad are depicted as joining hands in the defence of human conscience and its integrity. Al-‘Aqqad and Khalid are critically aware of the different roles that were assigned to the two prophets, but their outlook is nevertheless conciliatory and universalistic. Although their works are now history, they represent an interesting alternative to (mostly Christian) comparisons of Jesus and Muhammad that are one-sidedly oriented towards conflict and competition.

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