ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of some pertinent modern Christian–Muslim exchanges presented in two sections: human sinfulness and human dignity, before concluding with a synthetic proposal. Christian doctrines of original sin and redemption by Christ are not merely absent from the Qur'an; it is as though the text sets out systematically to disassemble the infrastructure of Christian soteriology. The slur of Muslim Pelagianism provoked a backlash, as seen in the writing of Rashid Rida', one of notable modern Islamic reformers. A tussle with Christianity provides him with the chance to show Islam to be much more modern in spirit than the quondam religion of Europe. A strategy advocated by several religious thinkers involves reworking the legal tradition by renouncing the doctrine of abrogation with regard to other divinely revealed religions. The Sunni Farid Esack and Shi'i Abdulaziz Sachedina both maintain that Qur'an's original message affirmed the salvific efficacy of other religions but that the tradition has sought to negate it.
