What Is Islam?

by William Montgomery Watt

What is Islam? Now more than ever, people are clamoring for an answer to this question. W. Montgomery Watt's book is reaching a new audience, recently awakened to the strength and significance of the Muslim faith. This study provides a clear understanding of the social and theological systems that underpin Islamic civilization. Islam is presented as a matrix for every aspect of human life; a vision of the world, embodied in the Qur'an, which permeates the fabric of society and dictates individual lives to a minute degree. In the three decades since it was first published, What is Islam? has become recognized as the standard work on Islam for the general reader, brilliantly shedding light on this mighty, often-misunderstood religion

272 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1968

About the author

William Montgomery Watt was a Scottish historian, an Emeritus Professor in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Watt was one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the West, was an enormously influential scholar in the field of Islamic studies and a much-revered name for many Muslims all over the world." Watt's comprehensive biography of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, Muhammad at Mecca (1953) and Muhammad at Medina (1956), are considered to be classics in the field .

Watt held visiting professorships at the University of Toronto, the Collège de France, and Georgetown University, and received the American Giorgio Levi Della Vida Medal and won, as its first recipient, the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies award for outstanding scholarship.