There is a historical and traditional connection between Christianity and Islam. The two faiths share a common origin in the Middle East.Muslims consider Christians as the People of the Book. From a Muslim standpoint, belief in the Injil (the original Gospel of Jesus) is an important part of Islamic theology, although Muslims view the current Gospels as corrupted. The bond extends even further with the Islamic Prophet Muhammad instructing Muslims to defend the Christian faith from aggressors in certain circumstances after treaties of peace have been signed, such as in the document called the Achtiname of Muhammad.

Furthermore, Islam and Christianity share at their core, the twin "golden" commandments of the paramount importance of loving God and loving one's neighbor, although the interpretations of these statements differ greatly between the two traditions, and, indeed, vary between all three Abrahamic religions.

Despite the similarities between the two faiths there are some major theological differences. Islam denies that God can be divided into a Holy Trinity. Muslims consider this division of God's Oneness to be a grave sin (Shirk). This difference, though, signifies a fundamental misunderstanding between the faiths. Christians also consider it heretical to deny the oneness, or unity, of God. Their articulation of the Trinity holds in tension the paradox of both the unity and Trinitarian diversity of God as one God who is three Persons. Islam also denies that God has a son. Muslims see Jesus as the last prophet sent to the Children of Israel like Elijah. Islam fully accepts Jesus as the Messiah.

Zakir Abdul Karim Naik (Urdu: ذاکر عبدالکریم نائیک; born 18 October 1965) is an Indian public speaker on the subject of Islam and comparative religion. He is the founder and president of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), a non-profit organisation that owns the Peace TV channel based in Dubai, UAE. He is sometimes referred to as a televangelist. Before becoming a public speaker, he trained as a doctor. He has written two booklets on Islam and comparative religion. He is regarded as an exponent of the Salafi ideology; he places a strong emphasis on individual scholarship and the rejection of "blind Taqlid", which has led him to repudiate the relevance of sectarian or Madh'hab designations, all the while reaffirming their importance.

Zakir Abdul Karim Naik was born on 18 October 1965 in Mumbai, India. He attended St. Peter's High School in Mumbai. Later he enrolled at Kishinchand Chellaram College, before studying medicine at Topiwala National Medical College and Nair Hospital and later the University of Mumbai, where he obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS). His wife, Farhat Naik, works for the women's section of the IRF.

Yusuf Estes (born in 1944) is an American Muslim preacher and teacher who converted from Christianity to Islam in 1991. He was a Muslim Chaplain for the United States Bureau of Prisons through the 1990s. He was a Muslim Delegate to the United Nations World Peace Conference for Religious Leaders held at the U.N. in September 2000.

Active in Islamic missionary work in the United States, Estes is often featured as guest presenter and keynote speaker at various Islamic events as well as frequently appearing on various Islamic satellite TV channels. Estes takes a dim view of today's public school system in the United States for any children, and highly recommends schools where they might receive a religious education combined with more advanced scholastic education.

Yusuf Estes was born in Ohio, and was raised in Houston, Texas in a Anglo-Saxon Protestant family. From 1962 to 1990, his career was in the music, entertainment and marketing fields. He also taught music and served as a music minister. He owned several musical instrument companies including the Estes Piano and Organ Company. He produced and directed live entertainment programs in the United States from the mid 1960s until his last endeavor for cable TV in Florida, entitled 'Estes Music Jamboree'.

Imam Shabir Ally is the president of the Islamic Information & Dawah Centre International in Toronto, Canada. He is a Muslim activist, preacher and speaker on Islam and Muslims.^{[citation needed]} He is also a debater engaging in regular debates in different parts of the world.^{[citation needed]}

He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, with a specialization in Biblical Literature, and an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Quranic Exegesis.^{[citation needed]} He is now in his fourth year of PhD studies in Quranic Exegesis at the University of Toronto.^{[citation needed]} He currently teaches Arabic at the University of Toronto.

Ally is known for accepting literal interpretation of the Quran verses, but seeks to find their justification in similar expressions within the Christian Bible. To this end he has participated in a number of debates and lectures.^{[citation needed]} Some of the more notable debates include:^{[citation needed]}

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group of Christians in the world^{[citation needed]}.

The current archbishop is the Most Reverend Rowan Williams. He is the 104th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to St Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle to the English", in the year 597. From the time of St Augustine until the 16th century, the Archbishops of Canterbury were in full communion with the See of Rome and thus received the pallium. During the English Reformation the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, at first temporarily under Henry VIII and Edward VI and later permanently during the reign of Elizabeth I.

In the Middle Ages there was considerable variation in the methods of nomination of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops. At various times the choice was made by the canons of Canterbury Cathedral, the King of England, or the Pope. Since the English Reformation, the Church of England has been more explicitly a state church and the choice is legally that of the British crown; today it is made in the name of the Sovereign by the Prime Minister, from a shortlist of two selected by an ad hoc committee called the Crown Nominations Commission.