Islam: Past, Present and Future (Der Islam) was published by R. Piper & Co. Verlag in 2004 (English translation by John Bowden published by Oneworld in 2007), and it is the second volume of Küng’s trilogy on the Abrahamic religions. At over 700 pages, it is the most comprehensive introduction to Islam written by a Christian theologian — a book that treats Islam with the same scholarly seriousness and critical respect that Küng brings to his own tradition.
Küng examines Islam through the same analytical framework he applied to Christianity: he identifies paradigm shifts (the original Medinan community, the Arab empire, classical Islamic civilization, the Ottoman period, modernity) and asks how the religion adapted to each new historical situation. He is particularly interested in the question of reform: whether Islam can undergo a transformation analogous to the Christian Reformation — a modernization of its legal and theological traditions that preserves the essential message while abandoning outdated institutional forms.
The book was controversial for different reasons in different communities: some Muslims objected to a Christian theologian writing about Islam at all; some Christians objected to the degree of respect and sympathy Küng showed toward Islam; and secularists objected to his assumption that religion could be reformed rather than simply abandoned.
Collecting Islam: Past, Present and Future
First English edition (Oneworld, Oxford, 2007): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First English edition in dust jacket: $15–$30
- First German edition (Piper, 2004): $20–$40