Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Abstract

The CSIC was founded in 1976 as a central teaching department of the federation of Selly Oak Colleges. Its roots lay in a lectureship by the Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust (ECCT) in the 1930s, when Dr Alphonse Mingana was the first incumbent. With Cadbury family support he had been able to collect a large amount of Arabic and Syriac manuscripts still housed today in the library at Selly Oak. Dr Mingana started a tradition of text-based study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations which was notably continued by Dr John Sweetman in his magisterial work on Islam and Christian Theology