ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys Christian attitudes towards the status of the Qur'an, the strategies Christians have used to engage the Qur'an and key themes in Christian approaches to the Qur'an. Christians have appropriated qur'anic passages for a variety of usages, including apologetics, polemics, translation, theological reflection, evangelization and academic purposes. They make use of the Qur'an by both allusion and direct citation. By the 'Abbasid period, Christian approaches to the Qur'an reached greater maturity. They composed systematic critiques of its historical origins, its interpretation and its relationship to the Islamic community. Christian polemicists have claimed that the Qur'an is flawed because of its literary shortcomings, its haphazard assembly as an incoherent text, its plagiarised biblical content and its lack of authentication for itself or its prophet. Mark Anderson analysed the qur'anic context in an academic way together with a deeper Christian theological reflection.
