The Sage Handbook of Islamic Studies

This timely and stimulating Handbook, edited by world-class experts in the field, provides a comprehensive guide to Islamic Studies today. It examines the main issues in the field and explores the key debates. It provides readers with an indispensable, balanced guide to the roots of Islam and the challenges it faces in the twenty-first century.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC. He is also Distinguished Chair for Middle East Studies at the US Naval Academy and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

According to the BBC he is the ＂world′s leading authority on contemporary Islam.＂ A former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, he has advised Prince Charles and met with President George W. Bush on Islam. He has taught at Princeton, Harvard, and Cambridge Universities and is an award winning film and documentary maker.

He is regularly interviewed on major networks including BBC and CNN, and has appeared several times on the Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2005 he was awarded the inaugural Purpose Prize along with Judea Pearl, the father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, with whom he tours promoting interfaith dialogue. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, his latest book, was published in 2007 by the Brookings Institution Press.

Dr Tamara Sonn is the Wm. R. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary. She is also past-president of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, a member of the academic advisory council for the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, a member of the board of directors of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy; and a member of the editorial boards for Muslim World, American Journal for Islamic Social Science, and several other journals. She is former vice president of the Eastern Division of the American Academy of Religion and former associate editor of the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin.