The beginning of wisdom, the Psalmist told us millennia ago, is to fear the Lord. I would agree, but would also humbly add something: The beginning of wisdom is also to try to understand an alien tradition with an open mind – open in the sense of not lacking a faith and identity of your own, but having the sensibility to appreciate the faith of others.

Abraham Kuyper’s remarkable book, On Islam, deserves praise for being such a sensible endeavor by a Western Christian theologian to understand the world of Muslims. Written more than a century ago – at a time when terms such as “interfaith dialogue” or “intercultural exchange” were not even on the horizon – the book not only gives us Kuyper’s observations during a monumental journey from Istanbul to Morocco, but also his insights about Islam as a religion.

I read the book as a Muslim and found lots in it to keep in mind. For starters, Kuyper’s comments on the Prophet Muhammad were significant. There has been a trend in the West, since the early Middle Ages, to regard the prophet of Islam as an imposter, a charlatan who created a heretical cult simply to...