A New (and Old) Muslim Approach to the Apostle Paul

Shabbir Akhtar on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians

Abstract

In 2018 Shabbir Akhtar (d. 2023) published The New Testament in Muslim Eyes: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. The book is built on a verse by verse commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, one of the Pauline epistles in the New Testament. Both a goad and a guide, Akhtar is attentive – unusually amongst Muslim Biblical scholarship – to the original Greek text of a complete New Testament book. A historical review of Muslim attitudes to Paul sets in context the unusual nature of Akhtar’s approach. He paysserious attention to the text, largely suspending judgment during the course of discussion, while making a series of critical assessments at the close of the book. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of Akhtar’s approach and aims to draw out the wider significance of his close engagement with New Testament Greek. It is proposed that Akhtar’s detailed and serious reading of a New Testament epistle could represent a significant step forward, a fork in the road of Muslim Biblical scholarship, encouraging other Muslim engagement with Biblical material which attempts to take seriously the self-understanding of the believing community even while not wholly accepting it.