New Lectures in Christian-Muslim Relations
As our readers will know, one of our major initiatives in the last two years has been the “Journey of Learning” interfaith conferences. Run in coordination with the Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding and Partnership (Anglican/Episcopal Church in Egypt), these gatherings have involved dozens of lecturers and students from Al-Azhar University, the Islamic Research Academy, the Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary, St. Leo the Great Coptic Catholic Seminary, the Alexandria School of Theology, the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO), and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Egypt. In our experience, the program is somewhat unique in modern Egypt in its aim to facilitate learning and dialogue around challenging questions, including theological and doctrinal topics. We would like to draw your attention to several newly published lectures from the 2025 conferences that may be of interest.
The first two lectures, from Dr. Sāmiya Qadrī Wanīs (Ain Shams University) and Dr. Ismāʿīl ʿAbdallāh (Al-Azhar University) are open access:
Being a Christian Woman in Egypt: A Personal and Sociological Journey (Dr. Sāmiya Qadrī Wanīs)
The Role of Islam in Combating Extremism (Dr. Ismāʿīl ʿAbdallāh)
Four other lectures are available to subscribers to the Dialogue Across Borders database:
Muslim Women in European Society (Dr. ʿAzza Ramaḍān)
The Concept of Abrogation (Naskh) in the Qurʾān (Dr. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Mālik Muṣṭafā)
Christian Perspectives on Social Media (Dr. ʿEmād Tūmās)
Islamic Enlightenment in the Modern Era Necessities and Pitfalls (Dr. Ismāʾīl ʿAbdallāh)
A special word of thanks is due to Sārā al-Sherbīny, a fourth-year student in translation at the Egyptian Russian University, for her meticulous and superb translation work on these lectures. We hope these materials provide a sense of some of the interesting and important conversations happening in Cairo.
Matthew Anderson
Director - Center for Arab-West Understanding
Executive Editor - Dialogue Across Borders (De Gruyter Brill)
February 22, 2026
Emerging Perspectives on Intercultural and Interreligious Relations
Dialogue Across Borders is a database of summary translations of Arabic newspaper articles with references to their sources about intercultural and interreligious relations, focusing primarily but not exclusively on Muslim-Christian relations. The database also contains articles with editorial analysis and interviews on the subject.