Temple Gairdner of Cairo revisited

Temple Gairdner was a prominent and respected figure in his own time, and remains an intriguing and engaging character worthy of occasional re‐examination. This paper presents some of the salient features of his biography and highlights some aspects of his life and work that deserve emphasis because of their continuing importance for the Christian approach to Islam. In particular, it describes the evolution in his assessment of Islam, how this affected his apologetic interpretation of Christianity for Muslims, his contribution to the training of missionaries to Islam, and how his contribution has been creatively continued within the Anglican Communion.