ABSTRACT
Although for both Christianity and Islam the cues to dogmatic belief lie in their scriptures, articulation into definitive doctrine has emerged, broadly speaking, out o f the respective decrees on their faith. Each of these religions, during their early formative years, took the witness of scripture and the witness o f faith-experiencefor Christians the tradition of the Fathers; for Muslims the Sunnah o f the Prophetand moulded their respective orthodoxies. Doctrine and dogma cemented orthodox identity. Yet, for both religions, the task of conceptual re-interpretation and formulaic articulation, including development and change in particular beliefs and articulating understandings o f them, have continued through the processes o f their own scholarly debates and discussions. The definitional and delimiting decrees of orthodoxy notwithstanding, these processes continue. Furthermore, with respect to any engagement between these two faith traditions, the scholar Charles Kimball notes: ‘the history of the interaction has been characterized by mistrust, misunderstanding and mutual antipathy’.1 Not only have internal theological debates and discussions been hotbeds of high emotion and deep dissent, but such engagement between the religions, if and when it has happened, has been equally, if not more so, contentious and fraught. Religious discourse has ever the capacity to generate more heat than light.
