Studying Islam

Clinton Bennett is history and biography editor for the New World Encyclopedia and teaches Religious Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz, USA. His books include In Search of Muhammad (1998) and Muslims and Modernity (2005).

"Bennett provides an insightful and incisive analysis of trends in approaches to the teaching of Islam. He deal frankly with the problems that emerge with both the "faith sensitive" and the "critical" approaches and illustrates ways in which the positive elements of both trends can be integrated. Using an innovative structure mirroring a descriptive analysis of religion in human life, Bennett demonstrates how the study of Islam does not need to side with either polemic or apologetics and how it can and must integrate the tough questions that are asked today if it is to have intellectual rigour. This work provides a summary of scholarship on Islam that will be helpful to students in the development of their analytical tools and to teachers in their search for a classroom stance that is faithful to the principles of religious studies as an academic discipline." - Andrew Rippin, University of Victoria, Canada

• Series Preface; Introduction: Studying Islam - Identifying Issues; 1 Seminal Personality and Scripture; 2 Community Dimension and Social Involvement; 3 Conceptual Framework and Ethics; 4 Rituals and Spirituality; 5 Aesthetics/Material Direction.