Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices offers a survey of Islamic history and thought from the formative period of the religion to the contemporary period. Combining core source materials with coverage of current scholarship and of recent events in the Islamic world, Bernheimer and Rippin introduce this hugely significant religion, including alternative visions of Islam found in Shi'ism and Sufism, in a succinct, challenging way. The improved and expanded fifth edition is updated throughout and includes new textboxes.

Teresa Bernheimer is currently Gerda Henkel Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, working on religious extremism in the early Islamic period.

Andrew Rippin was Professor of History and former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria, Canada, and among the foremost scholars of the Qur¿¿n.

List of Illustrations

Preface to the fifth edition

Introduction

Part I: Formative elements of classical Islam

1 Prehistory

2 The Qur¿n

3 Müammad

Part II: Emergence of Islamic identity

4 Political action and theory

5 Theological exposition

6 Legal developments

7 Ritual practice

Part III: Alternative visions of classical Islamic identity

8 The Sh¿ a

9 ¿¿f¿ devotion

Part IV: Consolidation of Islamic identity

10 Intellectual culture

11 Medieval visions of Islam

Part V: Modern visions of Islam

12 Describing modernity

13 Müammad and modernity

14 The Qur¿n and modernity

15 Issues of identity: ritual and politics

Part VI: Re-visioning Islam

16 Women, intellectuals, and other challenges

17 Perceptions of Muslims in the twenty-first century

Glossary

References

General index

Index of Qur¿¿n citations