Introducing Islam.

• Author: van der Krogt, Christopher
• Position: Book review

INTRODUCING ISLAM

Author: William E. Shepard

Published by: Routledge, London and New York, 2009, 2nd ed, 2014, 424pp, US$48.95 (pb).

In 21 chapters, the second edition of this book offers a very substantial survey of Islam from its origins to the present. After a methodological introduction, the book has three chapters surveying Islamic history to about 1700 and then ten thematic chapters on the Qur'an, Muhammad, ritual, sects, scholars, law, theology, Sufism, three key thinkers, and the arts. The third section includes a chapter outlining modern challenges and responses, case studies of four countries (Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Indonesia), a chapter on globalisation dealing with jihad, the Muslim diaspora in the West, and liberal Islam, and a very topical new chapter on gender, democracy and human rights.

This is a Religious Studies text book in a series with volumes on other major religious traditions, and its chapters follow a prescribed format. Each begins with a list of the topics to be covered, uses plenty of subheadings, summarises the key points, poses discussion questions, raises issues for critical thinking (a new feature), indicates what is available on the companion website, and lists reading suggestions both in print and online. There are black and white photographs as well as appropriate maps and other diagrams, a sustantial glossary of names and terms, a chronology and further appendices on the Islamic calendar and Muhammad's wives. In addition to the final reading suggestions and references, there is a fairly detailed index, though readers will often find the detailed contents pages more useful. The book is clearly written and attractively produced.

While the website currently delivers less than promised, hopefully it will be extended. I would suggest the addition of sound files to supplement the transliteration and pronunciation notes. On that issue, the use of consonantal diacritics and macrons to indicate long vowels is inconsistent: they are sometimes included in the main text but often omitted (see, for example, murid and qasida). Otherwise, there are very few typographical errors.

William Shepard's explicit aim--promoting 'empathetic understanding'--is to introduce Islam to readers who want to know how Muslims themselves understand their religion. He writes that 'If today Westerners tend to be more aware of the negative aspects of Islam, this is all the more reason why we need to stress the more positive aspects that...