An extended review of a 2025 book by Wafik Wahba
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Global Christianity and Islam: Exploring History, Politics, and Beliefs
By Wafik Wahba
IVP Academic, 2025. 352 pages. $52 (ebook $45, audio $20)
As Islam has gained wide, public attention, especially in the last few decades, so has curiosity and confusion regarding its relationship with Christianity. Are both faith traditions essentially the same? Do they worship the same deity? Have they always been in conflict?
Nowadays Muslims and their religion are often regarded with suspicion or derision by those outside their faith, Christian or otherwise. This volume serves as a fine introduction to the intertwined histories and theologies of the Christian and Islamic faiths, which can help the Church to better understand and serve the global Muslim community.
The author is professor of global Christianity at Tyndale University in Toronto, and has taught on global Christianity and Christian-Muslim relations in 25 countries.
The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Wahba provides a sweeping review of the histories of both Christianity and Islam, from the beginnings of the Church to the early 20th century. Instead of only enmity or one-sided subjugation, Wahba depicts a complex, nuanced relationship between the two faith traditions.
On the one hand, we learn how Christians contributed to the good of Islamic society during Islam’s golden age in the 8th and 9th centuries, and how Islamic intellectual traditions sharpened Christian thought in the Middle Ages.
On the other hand, we also become aware of the violence worked by the adherents of both faiths on each other, especially from events leading up to and including the Crusades.
In the second section, Wahba focuses on the religion and politics of both religions from 1910 to 2020. Here he discusses the most significant developments across the globe, highlighting major figures and events from almost all continents – the Ottoman Empire, the Arabization of Africa, the Balkan Wars, and so on.
Much attention is given to Islam in particular, and here one sees a cause for the suspicion toward the religion that one encounters today. Still, Wahba is careful to also discuss the rise of more moderate, liberal forms of the religion.
Together, the first two sections provide a wide introduction to the history of Christianity and Islam that will be useful for readers who have yet to dip their toes either in the subject entirely or with respect to certain periods of history.
However, any relatively concise history of two millennia is bound to miss out on some finer details. For example, I wish the sections on the Crusades and Inquisition were handled with more care. Scholarship from the past 50 years has served to dispel or at least ameliorate some of the popular myths and stereotypes of these events. It could have been useful for readers had the author mentioned some of this work, but given the scope and limits of the project, the author can hardly be blamed for some omissions.
And despite the minor criticism, there is much more to commend.
In the final section, Wahba provides a comparison between doctrines of Christian and Islamic theology, paying special attention to those regarding God, Jesus and religious community. He does a fine job discussing the fundamental differences along these lines. Readers in search of an introduction to basic distinctions in the religions’ theologies will find Wahba to be both helpful and respectful, displaying sensitivity to both radical and more moderate developments of Islamic thought.
My only criticism here is that the author at some points spends too much time explaining basic Christian doctrines (e.g., on the attributes of God) without discussing at similar length the corresponding Islamic doctrines. The result is that the distinction between the two belief systems could have been made sharper, especially at points where comparisons to Islamic theology come off as passing comments.
Still, Wahba generally maintains a detailed comparison of both faiths. The chapter on Islam’s views of Jesus as a mere prophet is particularly illuminating, especially since both Christianity and Islam take Jesus to be significant to the unfolding of salvation history.
At the end of the day, to effectively minister to the global Muslim community, understanding the history and teachings of Islam will be quite valuable. Wahba serves us by having written a guide that will prove useful toward this goal.
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