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1. Data Egypt is the most populous Arab country, even though the Nile makes only 4 percent of its land mass suitable for habitation and cultivation. The foundation of the modern Arab Republic of Egypt (Jumhūrīyat Miṣr al-ʿArabīyah), as it has been called since 1971, was laid in July 1952, when the reforming Free Officers under Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70) seized power. Egypt had previously been a constitutional monarchy, set up in 1923 after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World Wa…

1. Context and Historical Sketch 1.1. As the 20th century drew to its close, many Christians sensed both the urgency and the promise of new developments in the 1,400-year-old history of Christian-Muslim relations. Dramatic gestures such as the visits of Pope John Paul II to Muslim leaders throughout the world communicated the widely felt sense that new Christian attitudes toward Islam were developing and that new conversation and cooperation between Christian and Muslim theologians and institutions w…

Clear evidence that brings about the conviction that something is true, as well as its ordered presentation. Several qurʾānic terms are used to refer to the divinely provided evidence for God's existence, unicity, power and guidance, and in particular for the truth (q.v.) of his messengers' claims (see messenger ). Among the most common is the adjective bayyina (pl. bayyināt), “clear, evident, manifest,” usually used as a substantive, “clear evidence or proof.” Occurring primarily in Meccan passages (cf. Suyūṭī, Muʿtarak, i, 460-3; see chronology and the qurʾān ), its range of mea…