My Top 5 Books for Christians on Islam in South Asia

Books selected by Biswajit Patra, a scholar with the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, who has lived and served the Muslim community for over 25 years in West Bengal, India. (Blurbs written by Surinder Kaur.)

One of the predominant religions in South Asia, Islam shapes the beliefs and practices of nearly a third of the population in the region. As someone who is passionate about understanding Islam and developing good relationships with Muslims, I recommend the following works.

These books explore various aspects, including Islam in South Asia, Muslim-Christian relationships, historical contexts, conversion narratives, theological dimensions, innovative evangelism strategies, and global church planting movements. I hope these selections will provide an insightful exploration of Islam’s impact on the South Asian religious landscape and of ways Christians can engage with our Muslim neighbors.

Muslims in India: Attitudes, Adjustments, and Reactions, by Qamar Hasan

The advent of British colonial control marked a significant decrease in the influence and authority of Islam. Furthermore, when British colonial rule concluded, India became two distinct nations (India and Pakistan), primarily delineated by religious affiliation.

According to Hasan, Islam’s contextualization in India appears to be more pronounced compared to numerous other regions within the Muslim world. Throughout their existence, Indian Muslims have consistently upheld and preserved their distinct cultural identity. At times, this has been negative: Islam fundamentally opposes the structuring of society based on caste hierarchies, but the Indian Muslim community has embraced the caste system.

On the other hand, the Sufi movement, often known as folk Islam, has facilitated the coexistence of significant religious traditions. The Indian Sufis from the Bairagi tradition have incorporated dance and song to express devotion, particularly in performing before deities.

This 1987 work is distinctive in that it explores both the historical origins of young Indian Muslims’ attitudes and their responses to the expectations imposed on them by a segment of the majority population.

Including studies on minority-majority interactions in other contexts, the author informs the reader about the attitudes and evaluations of Muslims and Hindus toward one another, from both an internal perspective and external perceptions.

Transformative Religious Experience: A Phenomenological Understanding of Religious Conversion, by Joshua Iyadurai

Joshua Iyadurai, an expert on religious conversion, has collected more than 130 surprising and deeply transformative narratives of people adopting a new faith. Using these accounts, he has constructed a compelling theoretical framework that enhances our understanding of this phenomenon.

Through real-life stories, Iyadurai explores how people’s lives can radically change after encountering the divine and categorizes their encounters into visions, dreams, voices of God, miracles, prayers, and mild experiences.

Iyadurai uses psychology, sociology, anthropology, and theology to understand the conversion process, highlighting the importance of religious experiences as opposed to faith changes motivated by mere intellectualism. The book’s stories reveal that these transformations involve a reshaping of thoughts and values, replacing previous faith or nonfaith practices. The narratives also address the opposition the converts face from those close to them after their transformative experiences and spotlight their social lives post-conversion, often especially tough in India’s religious context.

Conviction and Conflict: Islam, Christianity, and World Order, by Michael Nazir-Ali

Michael Nazir-Ali provides a comparative analysis of Islam and Christianity, focusing on theology, missiology, and interfaith dialogue. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the genesis and evolution of the Muslim concept of God, tracing it back to the pre-Islamic period in Arabia when an awareness of a supreme deity called Allah existed. Nazir-Ali also explores the contrasting perspectives on God within Islam and Christianity, acknowledging doctrinal disparities while identifying specific fundamental attributes of God that both religions share.

He emphasizes that effective engagement in interfaith dialogue requires thoughtful consideration of interconnected sociopolitical and economic factors. For Muslims and Christians in India to engage in meaningful discourse, both must consider their distinct worldviews, perspectives on the essence of revelation, convictions about the divine organization of society, and other fundamental aspects inherent to these religious traditions.

Muslim Evangelism: Contemporary Approaches to Contextualization, by Phil Parshall

The church has grown accustomed to modest success in its attempts to evangelize Muslims. Phil Parshall, an American missionary whose ministry has focused on reaching Muslims with the gospel, argues that it’s imperative to investigate and rectify the reasons behind this limited progress.

In his 2003 book, Parshall calls on the missions community to present the fundamental principles of faith in an appealing manner within the cultural context of each specific people group.

Parshall addresses concerns about contextualization among Muslim-background believers, including questions about whether new converts should remain in the mosque, continue to affirm the shahada, or alter the term Son of God in the Bible to Isa-Al-Masi.

Despite his enthusiasm for the transformative impact of sharing Christianity tailored to the recipient’s context, Parshall expresses reservations about syncretism. He cautions that the dynamic process of sharing the gospel and transforming lives may inadvertently result in the loss of crucial gospel elements.

But Parshall also clarifies that adopting new ways of worshiping Jesus in diverse cultures should not automatically be labeled as syncretism. He advises new missionaries to deeply understand the form and meaning of Islam, emphasizing that such knowledge is crucial for comprehending the mental processes involved when Muslims encounter the faith and practices of Christianity.

I recommend this book because amid confusion about the various degrees of contextualization experts suggest, Phil Parshall’s work stands out.

Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World, by David Garrison

Since the 2004 release of this work by American missiologist David Garrison, church planting movements have been a large part of any discussion on missions.

An expert on church planting among unreached people groups, Garrison examines how God has used this model to accelerate evangelism around the world, pointing to examples in Southeast Asia, North Africa, China, Latin America, Central Asia, Western Europe, and Ethiopia in Muslim, Hindu, animist, and post-Christian secularist communities. It is a must-read, extremely practical book in which Garrison employs an evidence-based approach relevant to all—from church leaders to common believers seeking to engage with cross-cultural missions.

Despite acknowledging the potential emergence of heresy within these models (mostly because of their bottom-up nature where local leaders and traditions inform much of how these communities practice their Christianity), Garrison argues that these movements hold the “greatest potential for the largest number of lost individuals glorifying God.”

Highlighting that church planting movements are synonymous with church multiplying movements, Garrison also emphasizes that the church planting movement should be seen not as an end but as a means to an end: maturity and sanctification in Christ.

Read our authors’ bio in the series’ lead article, The Best Books for Understanding Islam and Connecting with Your Muslim Neighbors. (Other articles in this special series are listed to the right on desktop or below on mobile.)