Luke Wilkinson

Luke Wilkinson is currently undertaking a PhD at the Faculty of Divinity under the supervision of Professor Justin Meggitt and Dr Tim Winter. Luke is funded by an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP studentship. He also is Ian Karten Honorary PhD Scholar at the Woolf Institute

Luke is researching a thesis on Muslim-Christian relations in Malta during the early modern period. Ruled by the crusader Order of St John, Malta became an enclave of Christianity in an Ottoman-controlled sea, while, simultaneously, hosting a significant population of Muslim slaves captured by the Order. Revising the narrative of Malta as a place of Muslim-Christian enmity, he seeks to show how the exchange of ideas and practices between Muslims and Christians flourished even under the pressures of the local Inquisition.

Having grown up in Malta, a Catholic-majority country where the word for God is 'Alla', Luke has a deep commitment to interfaith understanding. He was part of the 2024-2025 cohort of the Senior Faith and Leadership Programme and is involved in interfaith outreach within Cambridge as part of the Woolf Institute. He also works as associate editor for Project Noon, which seeks to improve Hindu-Muslim understanding. Bringing this interfaith expertise to Malta, he is currently establishing a grassroots project in Malta with local community members that uses his research on Malta's mixed religious heritage to improve Muslim-Christian dialogue in the Maltese archipelago. His dream is to help Malta become once again a hub of interfaith connectivity at the crossroads of Europe and North Africa.