Muslims and Interfaith Engagement: Mining the Past and Creating the Future

Happening On 25/03/2026

The next presentation in our Study of Religions Research Seminar Series will take place on Wednesday 25 March from 6-7pm on MS Teams with Dr Rachel Woodlock

This talk examines two main ways Muslims are building peaceful relationships with people of other faiths in diverse, democratic societies. Muslims are doing this by finding positive examples from Islamic history and texts, and by using social media preachers to spread messages of religious harmony.

When Islamic scholars developed their religious teachings centuries ago, Muslim societies were led by Muslims, so their ideas about non-Muslims reflected this power difference. Today, Muslims need new religious thinking about interfaith relations—ways to prevent conflict and challenge negative stereotypes about Islam. Some important scholars, including Mahmoud Ayoub, Ingrid Mattson, Abdulaziz Sachedina, and Abdullah Saeed, have started developing this new religious thinking. However, not many Muslims know about this work, partly because Islamic education changed after colonialism and there are not yet many formal Islamic schools in Western countries.

Even with these challenges, Muslims are finding practical ways to live peacefully alongside people of different faiths. They are using two main strategies. First, they look back at Islamic history and religious texts to find examples of Muslims and non-Muslims getting along well. Second, popular religious teachers are using social media to share messages about respecting other religions. These approaches are giving Muslims new tools for building interfaith relationships.

Dr Rachel Woodlock is Deputy Director of the National Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a Visiting Lecturer at the Study of Religions Department, University College Cork. Her research has focused on the social integration of religious Muslims in Western contexts as well as modern reforms to questions of Islam and gender. Her most recent work is "Islam and Gender Reform" in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Reform, ed. Emad Hamdeh and Natana Delong-Bas (Oxford University Press) due for release in June 2026. She co-edited Fear of Muslims? International Perspectives on Islamophobia with Douglas Pratt (Springer, 2016), an evidence-based examination of Islamophobia in both 'old-world' Europe and the 'new-world' of America and Australia, and also Southeast Asia. She also co-wrote For God's Sake: An Atheist, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim Debate Religion (Pan MacMillan, 2013), discussing some of life's biggest questions. She is currently visiting to conduct research looking at the settlement of Muslims in Ireland.

All Welcome To Join Us On Teams. Please contact Dr Jenny Butler for more information on j.butler@ucc.ie