In light of ongoing global conflicts between religious groups and discrimination against religious or ideological minorities, the issue of religious freedom is highly relevant.

The present study, which was submitted and accepted as a doctoral dissertation in the Department of Missiology at the Philosophical-Theological University in Vallendar (Germany) in the winter term of 2019–20, is devoted to an understanding of religious freedom in Christian–Islamic dialogue and thus addresses a twofold problem: a dialogical one, insofar as it is about mutual interreligious recognition and thus about a concession of religious freedom; and a logical one, insofar as the question of a theological basis for a common advocacy of religious freedom is posed. Especially the second point is in the foreground of the study, although the first aspect is also included with regard to positionings within the field of theology of religions.

Chapter 1 thematises religious freedom as a universal human right by outlining central historical developments and normative contents. Methodologically, the concrete theological reflection is preceded by a general hermeneutical investigation of the concept of religious freedom. Thus, the study lays a strong focus on the universal validity of religious freedom. This hermeneutic is based on the principle of the validity of the principles of religious freedom contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Already at this point – according to the author's diagnosis – tensions between the Western-dominated conception of religious freedom and its definition in countries with a Muslim majority become apparent, insofar as religious freedom in the latter case primarily focuses on the positive freedom of religious practice, but not on the protection of religious minorities.

Chapter 2, based on the Vatican II document Dignitatis humanae, takes a look at the Catholic perspective on religious freedom and at the same time shows the development from a rejecting to a supporting position. A structural problem arises from this approach: since there is no official Muslim magisterium, there is also no official Islamic perspective on the concept of religious freedom. In this sense, the author takes the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam as a normative text and from here reconstructs areas of tension that arise in a specific religious logic of human rights. In view of these areas of tension, she demands a nonreligious justification of human rights and at the same time a religious legitimation or motivation. However, the explicit assumption of a universal and in this sense perspective-independent normative justification of human rights remains problematic, and is to be taken up again at the end of this text.

Against this background, the choice of Abdullah Saeed as representative of an Islamic perspective on human rights in general and religious freedom in particular is a logical consequence. Saeed's programme, which is presented in chapter 3, in fact corresponds essentially to the normative form of religious freedom presented by the author. It also corresponds methodologically in the attempt to work out its presupposed general validity in accordance with Islamic tradition. In contrast to instructionist or textualist approaches, Saeed emphasises the contextuality of the origin of the Qur'an and its reception, which itself becomes a moment in a dialogical process of revelation. The uncircumventable inclusion of the subject in the process of revelation marks its ambiguity and that of the law based on it. Thus, not only can the individual's decision to believe be acknowledged, but also religious diversity as willed by God. As the author herself notes, however, Saeed does not develop this perspective in a coherent theological system. Occasionally, logical gaps in reasoning become visible, which call for a more precise philosophical analysis of revelation. For example, Saeed's claim to the idea of a God-ordained religious diversity is not hermeneutical, but logically circular, because he previously denied precisely that a Qur'anic justification can apply independently of context. But how, if not from the Qur'an, could he know about the divine will? If he derives it from the Qur'an on the other hand, does he not obviously give up the idea of radical contextuality?

In the fourth chapter a Christian reflection of the approach of Saeed is undertaken. Structurally irritating is the inclusivist positioning within the framework of theology of religions. Insofar as the author has up to this point represented the position of an autonomous justification of the universal validity of religious freedom, it must at least be asked which inclusivism is meant here. For the classical form of theology-of-religion-inclusivism aims at a determination of the salvific value of the foreign in categories of the own. But because both Christian and Muslim concepts of religious freedom are to be measured against the standard of an autonomous justification of religious freedom, the inclusivist positioning implicitly assumes that the Christian-Catholic concept of religious freedom corresponds more to this claim than the Muslim one. Such a conclusion would only be possible on the basis of a differentiated derivation of this claim in the horizon of a Christian concept of revelation, but unfortunately this is largely absent. Although the author tries to point out that she is concerned with a hermeneutic inclusivism that wants to overcome any claims to superiority in dialogical practice, strictly speaking, it is no longer a question of theology of religions but one of hermeneutics in general. Focusing on the idea of the search for truth as a religious reasoning for religious freedom, the appraisal of Abdullah Saeed's approach is coherent. Insofar as a common, albeit religiously differently accentuated human longing for transcendence comes into view, the comparison allows both an interreligious and autonomous-philosophical compatibility of Christian and Muslim thought.

The conclusion of the book is drawn in the fifth chapter by a practice-oriented concretisation of an interreligious commitment to religious freedom. The concluding section is consistently elaborated following the previous considerations and reflects on problem areas and the relevance of religious freedom for religions, as well as approaches to a criteriology of its consistent defense.

The study makes clear from the beginning that it wants to be understood as a contribution to the defence of the universal value of religious freedom. In this understanding, it is also instructive in many respects and offers a liberal perspective for an interreligious ethos, especially in the field of Christian-Islamic understanding. However, it remains epistemologically problematic if the truth of religious convictions is measured against the validity of ethical premises. In this way, the autonomous justification of human rights seems to determine the very essence of truth, while religious convictions may illustrate this essence, but any deviation from it is a distortion. This threatens to immunise the human right of religious freedom against a critical further definition on the basis of specific religious convictions. Also, dialogue can basically only be conducted with those people of other religions who share one's own ethical convictions. Here one will have to ask whether a consistent advocacy of the freedom of religion must not lead into a critical-constructive dialogue also with those positions that want to limit or even deny its universal validity. It is precisely here that a search for theologically conditioned motivations seems politically more relevant and theologically more productive.