Series Preface Introduction: Studying Islam - Identifying Issues 1 Seminal Personality and Scripture 2 Community Dimension and Social Involvement 3 Conceptual Framework and Ethics 4Rituals and Spirituality 5 Aesthetics/Material Direction
Including historical foundations, scripture, society, thought, ethics, rituals, spirituality and aesthetics, this is the ideal study aid for those approaching Islam for the first time.
Clinton Bennett teaches Religious Studies at the State University
of New York at New Paltz,
USA.
"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
"In this comprehensive study aid Bennett provides students with an
introductory look at Islam from an academic point of view. The past
and current attitudes and approaches to the subject are aptly
represented as well as core sources such as the Qur'an. Bennett
draws constructive elements from both the critical and the faith
sensitive schools of thought thus setting a balanced foundation for
religious study in general. This is the first volume in the
Studying World Religions series, which takes on the subject of
religious studies as social science rather than theology." -Eithne
O'Leyne, BOOK NEWS, Inc.
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