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Introduction DAVID MARSHALL In his final year as Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams convened the eleventh annual Building Bridges seminar for Christian and Muslim scholars, on the theme of ‘‘Death, Resurrection, and Human Destiny.’’ The seminar lasted from April 23–25, 2012; the first day was dedicated to public lectures at King’s College London while the second and third days consisted of private sessions at the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge for the group of some thirty invited seminar participants. This record of the seminar closely follows the structure of its three days. The Preface draws on comments made by Rowan Williams in introducing the seminar . He begins by reviewing ten years of Building Bridges, noting two distinctive features of this approach to Christian–Muslim dialogue. First, it has not sought a high public profile but rather has been concerned to develop a community of scholars whose aim has been ‘‘to model a patience in dialogue that is fundamentally oriented towards getting to know one another’s hearts.’’ Second, Building Bridges has emphasized the study of scripture because ‘‘what actually changes things and moves us forward is watching somebody else engaging at depth with their own sacred texts and with their own tradition.’’ Turning to the theme of this seminar, Williams notes that, in a culture that finds it hard to discuss death, it is important for Muslims and Christians, who ‘‘share the vocabulary of death, resurrection, and judgment,’’ to ‘‘talk to each other with honesty and with openness about our mortality’’ and so ‘‘contribute to the health of the society and the world around us.’’ Part I of this volume (‘‘Surveys’’) consists of edited versions of the three pairs of lectures given on the seminar’s opening day, with each of the lectures by a Christian followed by a response from a Muslim, and vice versa. The first two essays focus on scripture. After a brief survey of the relatively few references to resurrection in the Old Testament, N. T. Wright argues that early Christianity xv xvi Introduction ‘‘was not nearly as interested in ‘life after death’ as the modern world has been. . . . The emphasis is on the present: Jesus is raised, therefore he is the world’s true Lord, and therefore we have a job to do.’’ Christians were in fact concerned with ‘‘‘life after life after death’: the ultimate resurrection, after a period of being bodily dead.’’ Wright illustrates his reading of the New Testament with detailed comments on the response of Jesus to the Sadducees’ question about the afterlife (Mark 12:18–27) and passages from I Corinthians 15, Romans 8, and Revelation 21–22. The essence of the biblical hope is that ‘‘the creator God will rescue his whole creation from all that defaces and corrupts it, and this act of restorative justice, long promised in scripture, has been accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah.’’ Mona Siddiqui’s essay focuses chiefly on the Qurān while also drawing in some wider Islamic perspectives. She emphasizes the vivid imagery with which the Qurān conveys the reality of an afterworld and an afterlife and also draws attention to the contrast between the Qurānic eschatology and the fatalistic determinism of the pagan Arabs, who typically responded with incredulity to Muh .ammad’s proclamation. Siddiqui refers to the development in Islamic tradition of certain aspects of the Qurān’s eschatology, such as its brief references to barzakh, which came to be understood as both the time and the place of waiting between death and resurrection. She also notes how the Qurān’s references to an eschatological role to be played by Jesus are greatly developed in the later tradition. Her concluding emphasis is on the Qurān’s message of hope in the divine mercy. With the essays by Asma Afsaruddin and Geoffrey Rowell we move from scripture to tradition. Afsaruddin draws on the h .adı̄th corpus, works of exegesis (tafsı̄r), and ethical or edifying literature to give some impression of the ‘‘richly textured tapestry’’ that records how Muslims ‘‘have conceptualized life after their earthly existence.’’ Topics covered in this wide-ranging survey include the need for constant remembrance of death; the mysteries of death and the grave (including discussion of the two angels, Munkar and Nakı̄r, and of barzakh); the intercession of the Prophet; the topography of the next world; and the ‘‘exalted status assigned by the tradition to martyrs...

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