Hugh Goddard

Professor of Christian-Muslim Relations

School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham

Professor Goddard has been a member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Nottingham since 1984, when the teaching of Islam was established in Nottingham, and since then he has been responsible for developing the study of Islam and of the relationship between Christianity and Islam. He has been Head of the Department of Theology from January 2002-04. His undergraduate studies were in Oxford, where he took a degree in Islamic History in the Oriental Faculty, and after two years in the Middle East, learning firstly to speak Arabic and secondly something of the relations between the Christian and Muslim communities in that region, he returned to England for doctoral research at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations in Birmingham. His thesis was on Modern Egyptian Muslim Perceptions of Christianity. Since taking up his post in Nottingham he has been able to undertake research visits to a number of different continents to investigate the relationship between Christians and Muslims in different settings. Countries visited include Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia as well as a number of countries in North America and Europe. Professor Goddard teaches undergraduate and MA-level modules on Islam and on Christian-Muslim Relations. He is responsible for supervising the research of postgraduates from different parts of the world on particular aspects of Islam and on the mutual perceptions of Christians and Muslims. He is also the convenor of the Universty's Interdisciplinary Middle East Seminar series (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/hrc/MiddleEast/seminars.php)