Christian Perspectives on Sufism

Christian Perspectives on Sufism: Mystics, Monks and Mosques explores how Christian thought has historically engaged with the mysticism of Islam, offering a theologically grounded, dialogical reflection on Sufi beliefs and practices.

Drawing on a series of lectures delivered at Oxford, this book examines Christian–Sufi encounters through themes such as love, law, poetry, freedom and mysticism—tracing both mutual influence and theological divergence. It explores how Sufism emerged and developed in dialogue with other traditions along the Silk Road, how figures like Rumi and Iqbal expressed mystical ideas in poetry and philosophy, and how Christian thinkers have engaged with these ideas across time. With chapters on the renewal of thought in both Islam and Christianity in the Middle East and South Asia, the book provides a differentiated and critical Christian perspective on Sufism—appreciating its spiritual richness while engaging its theological tensions.

Accessible yet grounded in deep scholarship, this book will appeal to students and scholars of theology, religious studies, Islamic studies and Middle Eastern history, as well as to those involved in interfaith dialogue and Christian–Muslim engagement across the globe.

Michael Nazir-Ali is a member of the Ordinariate in the Catholic Church and Prelate to the Holy See, a professor of theology at the Pontifical University of St Thomas (Angelicum), a lector at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He serves as President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue (OXTRAD) and was Anglican Bishop of Rochester from 1994–2009. Previously, he was General Secretary of the Church Mission Society and Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan, where he has both Christian and Muslim family background. From 1999, he was a member of the House of Lords and served on the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (1997–2003), chairing its Ethics and Law Committee. He also chaired the Rochester Commission on women bishops and was President of the Network for Interfaith Relations of the Anglican Communion. Currently, he chairs the Christian Coalition for Education and the New Humanum Group. He has studied and taught at universities including Karachi, Oxford and Cambridge, and is author of several books, most recently The Mission and Ministry of the Church in England (2023).