The latest addition to the New College Curriculum is the MSc in Christian Muslim relations, led by Programme Director Dr Shadaab Rahemtulla.
This exciting Taught Masters offers a rich and broad study of the Islamic intellectual traditions of scripture, law, theology and philosophy in conversation with Christian thought, ethics and political theology. The dialogical framework of the MSc in Islam & Christian-Muslim Relations allows you to study multiple disciplines in both Islamic and Christian thought and practice. It is a reminder that the University of Edinburgh has a rich tradition of the study of the history, languages and cultures of the Middle East, including the Professorship of Hebrew and Oriental Languages which was founded in 1650.
Dr Shadaab Rahmetulla
Trained in Islamic thought at the University of Oxford, Dr Shadaab Rahemtulla is Lecturer in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. He is also the Programme Director of the newly launched Masters in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.
Shadaab’s primary interest lies in the relationship between religion, power, and resistance, exploring how religious texts can be (re)interpreted to challenge structures of social domination, including poverty, patriarchy, racism, and empire. His first book, “Qur’an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam” (Oxford University Press, 2018), is a global, comparative analysis of how contemporary Muslim theologians have expounded the Qur’an as a liberating scripture, speaking to their own lived realities of marginalization. His second book project – tentatively entitled “Islam and Native American Suffering: Indigenising Islamic Liberation Theology” (under contract with OUP) – seeks to reread the Qur’an in the light of Native American rights and indigenous struggles against settler colonialism. Alongside liberation theology, Shadaab has written on Islamo-Christian relations, religious pluralism, and the Muslim Friday Prayer. Before joining the University of Edinburgh, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Jordan’s School of International Studies in Amman, where he taught for six years.
