A New Introduction to Islam

This third edition of the highly successful, A New Introduction to Islam, provides a comprehensive exploration of the origins, key features and lasting influence of the Islamic tradition. Exploring the Islamic tradition around the world, it discusses and compares the development of Muslim beliefs and practices in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, as well as the spread of Islam to Europe and the Americas, placing each within its social and cultural context.

This edition builds on its appeal to students in a number of ways, including the addition of important recent scholarship on Islamic origins the life of Muhammad, the Qur′an, and the hadith literature which is covered extensively in thoroughly revised chapters. Contemporary trends are discussed as they relate to the intellectual history of Islam, including explorations of Apocalypticism and Salafism.

For students, this new edition features study questions and "resources for further study" for each chapter. The primary text has been supplemented with more illustrative material, charts, and excerpts from primary sources. With increased coverage of current events and Islam′s relationship to the world, the third edition of A New Introduction to Islam is a critical resource for today′s students.

Daniel Brown is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Religion in the Middle East (ISRME) and the author of Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (1999). His interests include modern Muslim intellectual history, Hadith studies, and Muslim–Christian relations. He is the editor of the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Hadith.