The Character of Christian-Muslim Encounter is a Festschrift in honour of David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam, and Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Inter Religious Relations, at the University of Birmingham, UK. The Editors have put together a collection of over 30 contributions from colleagues of Professor Thomas that commences with a biographical sketch and representative tribute provided by a former doctoral student, and comprises a series of wide-ranging academic papers arranged to broadly reflect three dimensions of David Thomas' academic and professional work - studies in and of Islam; Christian-Muslim relations; the Church and interreligious engagement. These are set in the context of a focussed theme - the character of Christian-Muslim encounters - and cast within a broad chronological framework.

Contributors, excluding the editors, are: Clare Amos, John Azumah, Mark Beaumont, David Cheetham, Rifaat Ebied, Stanisław Grodź SVD, Alan Guenther, Damian Howard SJ, Michael Ipgrave, Muammer İskenderoğlu, Risto Jukko, Alex Mallett, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Lucinda Mosher, Gordon Nickel, Jørgen Nielsen, Claire Norton, Emilio Platti, Luis Bernabé Pons, Peniel Rajkumar, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Andrew Sharp, Sigvard von Sicard, Richard Sudworth, Mark Swanson, Charles Tieszen, John Tolan, Davide Tacchini, Herman Teule, Albert Walters.

Biographical note
Douglas Pratt, PhD (1984), St Andrews, Scotland, DTheol (2009) MCD Melbourne, is Professor of Religious Studies, University of Waikato, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor, University of Bern. His most recent book is Being Open, Being Faithful: The Journey of Interreligious Dialogue (2014).

Jon Hoover, PhD (2002), Birmingham, is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Nottingham. He has published Ibn Taymiyya's Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism (2007), studies on the theology of Ibn Taymiyya, among others, and essays on Christian-Muslim relations.

John Davies (The Very Revd), PhD (1999), Lancaster University, is Dean of Derby Cathedral and a former Chaplain of Keble College Oxford.

John Chesworth, PhD (2008), Birmingham, is project officer and co-editor with David Thomas for Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 1500-1900. He co-edited Sharī'a in Africa Today: Reactions and Responses (2014) and has written on Christian-Muslim relations in Africa and Europe.