Professor David Thomas

Professor David Thomas

Department of Theology and Religion
Director, CMR1900 project

Contact details

Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

David Thomas is Professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham.

Biography

A specialist in Islamic religious thought and in the history and theology of Christian-Muslim relations, his recent studies focus on the character of arguments used against Christian doctrines in works of Muslim systematic theology. He is Managing Editor of the book series The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, published by Brill of Leiden, and Chief Editor of the journal Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.

Since 2006 he has led Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History, a project to bring to light all the known works written by Muslims and Christians about one another and against one another. The first part of the project, CMR600, produced five encyclopaedic volumes that covered the period 600-1500. The second part, CMR1900, continues and completes this up to the year 1914. 

Publications

Some recent publications: 

  • 2015 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 7 (Eastern Europe, the Ottoman world, South Asia and East Asia, Africa and the Americas 1500-1600), Leiden
  • 2015 ‘Al-Ghazālī and the progress of Islamic thought’, in Gene Lemcio (ed.), A man of many parts: Essays in honor of John Westerdale Bowker, Eugene OR: Wipf and Stock
  • 2014 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 6 (Western Europe 1500-1600), Leiden
  • 2014 ‘Christian borrowings from Islamic theology in the classical period: the witness of al-Juwaynī and Abū l-Qāsim al-Anṣārī’, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2, 125-42
  • 2013 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 5 (1350-1500), Leiden 
  • 2012 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 4 (1050-1200), Leiden 
  • 2012 ‘Christianity in Islamic theology: the case of al-Juwayni’, in C. Belo and J.-J. Pérennès (eds), Mission in dialogue. Essays in honour of Michael L. Fitzgerald, Louvain 
  • 2011 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 3 (1050-1200), Leiden 
  • 2010 ‘Miracles in Islam’, in G. Twelftree, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, Cambridge 
  • 2010 ‘Christian Voices in Muslim Theology’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), 357-79 
  • 2010 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 2 (900-1050), Leiden 
  • 2009 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1 (600-900), Leiden 
  • 2008 Christian Doctrines in Islamic Theology (The History of Christian-Muslim Relations 10), Leiden