$30,000 Grant to Aurora University to Write Christian-Muslim Relations Dictionary

AURORA, Ill.-The Henry Luce Foundation of New York City has awarded Aurora University a $30,000 grant to create a dictionary of Christian-Muslim relations.

Martin Forward, executive director of the university's Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action, will lead two editors and about 60 contributors in the four-year project.

In addition to Forward, editors of the volume are Scott Alexander, associate professor of Islam and director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago; and Rashied Omar, a research scholar of Islamic Studies and Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame.

Forward said, "We plan for the Dictionary of Christian-Muslim Relations to use learning to constructive rather than destructive ends. The volume will map out the significant patterns of relations between the world's two largest religions.

"The dictionary will act as a focus for the discipline of Christian-Muslim relations internationally. As such, we hope it will develop understanding of positions both within and between Christianity and Islam.

"We hope it will provide a comprehensive single reference to a discipline which touches not only on numerous other areas of study but also on the interests of a dedicated general readership in Britain, the United States, continental Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere," Forward said.

He is planning the dictionary as a single-volume, multi-author work of around 360,000 words. Included will be up to 900 alphabetically-arranged entries of varying lengths, together with a number of entries consisting simply of a single-line cross-reference to a full entry. Additionally,
contents will include an introductory essay, bibliography, and  appendix material such as a chronology.

Planned content categories are historical events and movements, people, institutions, places and countries, theology, denominations, scripture, non-scriptural core texts, publications, culture and the arts, and miscellaneous.

According to Forward, there is no competitive dictionary currently available or in preparation. 

The book will be targeted to both international and multi-disciplinary readers, and both specialist and general. "It is our intention to ensure that the Dictionary is pitched as much at the general readership as at the academic market," Forward said.

The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to honor his parents who were missionary educators in China. The Foundation builds upon the vision and values of four generations of the Luce family: broadening knowledge and encouraging the highest standards of service and leadership.

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