NEWSBRIEF: Dictionary of Christian-Muslim relations

A US university has received a $30,000 grant from the New York-based Henry Luce Foundation to create what is expected to be the world's first dictionary of Christian-Muslim relations.

Aurora University, an undergraduate liberal arts college in Illinois, will produce the 360,000-word dictionary over the next four years. Martin Forward, executive director of the university's Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action, will head three editors and 60 contributors in preparing the single volume work.


The other editors are Scott Alexander, associate professor of Islam and director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies programme at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Rashied Omar, a research scholar of Islamic Studies and Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, and Marcia Hermansen, director of the Islamic World Studies program and professor in the theology department of Loyola University, Chicago.

Forward said the dictionary would act as a focus for the discipline of Christian-Muslim relations internationally. He said he hoped it would develop understanding of positions both within and between Christianity and Islam.

"We hope it will provide a comprehensive single reference to a discipline which touches not only on numerous other areas of study but also on the interests of a dedicated general readership in Britain, the United States, continental Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere," Forward said.