Based on a symposium on the theme 'Islam and the History of Religions', this important work features thoughtful essays on the study of Islam. In essays organized around five themes in religious studies, the scholars in this volume call for an increase in the attention given to Islam as part of religious studies and for greater clarity in our understanding both of Islam and of religion in terms of Islam. Influential and powerful, when first published in 1985, this text helped bring about the transition of Islamic studies from Orientalism and area studies to religious studies.
