Muslim Scholar to Present Lecture Here Monday on 'Jesus in Islam'

Zeki Saritoprak, who holds the Bediüzzaman Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, will present the lecture “Jesus in Islam” at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Woulfe Alumni Hall North in the Anderson Student Center on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

Zeki Saritoprak

Zeki Saritoprak

The lecture is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, a joint enterprise of St. Thomas and St. John’s University, Collegeville, in collaboration with the Niagara Foundation - Minnesota and the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center at St. Thomas.

Saritoprak will examine the place of Jesus in Islam from different classical and contemporary Muslim theological perspectives and he will discuss the role Jesus can play in interfaith dialogue. Among other issues, he plans to highlight different Islamic theological approaches to what Christians call “the second coming of Christ” and Muslim’s refer to as “Jesus' descent.”

Saritoprak holds a Ph.D. in Islamic theology from the University of Marmara in Turkey. He is the author of the book Islam’s Jesus and the editor and co-translator of Fundamentals of Rumi’s Thought: A Mevlevi Sufi Perspective. He has also served as guest editor for issues of the journals Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations and The Muslim World and he has written more than 30 published academic articles and encyclopedia entries on topics in Islam.