The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has announced a new PhD concentration in Islamic Studies, further strengthening the institution’s longstanding commitment to equipping the church for global gospel engagement.
Building on years of course offerings and doctoral research related to Islam, the new concentration formalizes a focused track designed to prepare scholars, pastors, and missionaries for thoughtful, theologically grounded engagement with the Muslim world.
Ayman Ibrahim, who serves as the Bill and Connie Jenkins Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Seminary and is the Director of the Jenkins Center for a Christian Understanding of Islam, said the new PhD concentration represents a natural step forward for Southern’s academic and missional efforts.
“This is the natural development of our master’s level program, which is rigorous but also gospel-driven and Christ-centered,” Ibrahim said. “With a PhD in Islamic Studies, we are in the right position to lead the discussion among evangelicals.”
Many Southern Seminary students have already concentrated their research on Islam and world religions. The new concentration helps bring a sharper focus to that work with the explicit aim of serving the church by engaging directly with Islam.
“Islam is the religion that is adopted by at least 20 percent of the world’s population, and Southern Seminary is driven by gospel proclamation,” Ibrahim said. “That’s what we want to accomplish locally and globally. To serve the church in its interaction with Muslims, we need to have this degree to help pastors and missionaries not only understand more about Islam as an ideology and a worldview, and Muslims as people who follow this ideology, but also to drive the conversation about Islam in writing and in books.”
Provost Paul Akin emphasized the global and missional stakes behind the new program and stressed the urgency for equipping Christians to engage Islam with the gospel.
“In a world where nearly two billion people claim to be followers of Islam, there is an urgency for Christians to engage Muslims with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Akin said. “This PhD is not about studying Islam for its own sake, but about preparing faithful pastors, missionaries, and church leaders to engage Muslims here and around the world with biblical truth. The launch of this PhD at Southern Seminary is more than an academic milestone. It is a clear expression of our commitment to faithfulness in mission and fidelity to Scripture. If the church is serious about the Great Commission, we must be serious about engaging the Muslim world with the gospel, and this program is one way we are doing that.”
Ibrahim pointed to the kind of doctoral research already underway as a glimpse of how the concentration will serve churches.
“We have PhD students discussing militant Islam. We have people working in Christian-Muslim apologetics. We have students studying women in Islam,” he said. “These represent churchmen and churchwomen discussing topics related to how the church can bring more awareness and more understanding in our world about Islam from a Christian perspective.”
A key distinction of the program, Ibrahim noted, is its explicitly theological foundation.
“You can find many universities in the world that study Islam, and they may do a good job studying it critically,” he said. “But we are motivated by theology. We are not only examining Islam critically, but we are also examining Islam through a theological lens. We are driven by what the Bible says.”
That commitment shapes how students are trained to address questions and challenges raised by Islam. Students in the concentration will engage Islamic primary sources, study Arabic, and explore Islamic history, theology, and contemporary movements, all while remaining anchored in the authority of Scripture and the mission of the church. “This is the place where you can study because we balance two things very well,” Ibrahim said. “We are rigorous when it comes to studying Islam critically, based on its primary sources. We even study Arabic, the language of Islam. But we also take the gospel seriously. We are top-notch academically, and we do not compromise the gospel. We are driven by our love for Christ to serve the church in its proclamation of the gospel among Muslims.”
Learn more about this new PhD concentration here.