Al-Din

Originally published in 1952, al-Din, by prominent Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abdullah Draz (1894–1958), has been critically acclaimed as one of the most influential Arab Muslim studies of universal 'religion' and forms of religiosity in modern times. Written as an introductory textbook for a course in the "History of Religions" at King Fuad I University in Cairo—the first of its kind offered at an Egyptian institution of higher learning—this book presents a critical overview of classical approaches to the scholarly study of religion. While ultimately adapted to an Islamic paradigm, the book is a novel attempt to construct a grand narrative about the large methodological issues of Religious Studies and the History of Religions and in relation to modernity and secularism. Translated for the first time in English by Yahya Haidar, this book demonstrates how the scholarly academic study of religion in the West, often described as 'Orientalist', came to influence and help shape a counter-discourse from one of the leading Arab Muslim scholars of his time.

Muhammad Abdullah Draz’s effort to blend a view of European philosophy and science with Islamic spiritual traditions is at last available in an excellent English translation. Draz’s fascinating conceptualization of method and approach, which blends the claims of Tylor, Van der Leeuw, Kant, Descartes, Durkheim, Müller, and James with categories and perspectives native to Islam results in a stunningly ambitious twentieth-century foray into the history of religions. The English prose is sharp and precise, and the editing and production first-rate. Congratulations to I. B. Tauris for taking on this project., This volume offers a valuable annotated translation of the work of one of Egypt’s most important Islamic scholars from the last century. It will allow readers of English to learn about what is arguably the most significant Islamic intervention from the period into debates in the sociology of religion. Anyone interested in provincializing Europe in the study of religion should read this.

Dr. Yahya Haidar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai, UAE.M.A. Draz (1894-1958) obtained his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris, before returning to Cairo where he became Professor of Islamic Studies at Al Azhar University. At his death in 1958 he had established himself as one of the world's leading Islamic scholars.