LOVE YOUR MUSLIM NEIGHBOUR
Understanding Islam in today’s world
By Edward Challen. Day One. 272 pages. £10.00
ISBN 1 84625 009 9
The author has done the ordinary evangelical a great service by this readable, eirenic book.
Challen served Christ ‘in a south Asian country, living among Muslims’, and is well-equipped to present a work that is essentially a practical guide to comprehending the fastest-reproducing religion in the world (I do not say ‘fastest-growing’; most Muslim growth is through the birth-rate) and the UK’s largest non-Christian minority. Some popular books by evangelicals on Islam tend to be Islamophobic and/or inaccurate, so it is a relief to encounter a book that warns against ‘intolerance and resentment against Muslims among Christians in this country’ (p.11). Undoubtedly, Challen’s experience in the Muslim world has led him to see how unbiblical and counter-productive such an attitude is.