Abstract

Book ReviewsW. M. Watt, What is Islam? New York, Praeger, 1968, pp. 256, $ 6.50 SAGE Publications, Inc.1971DOI: 10.1177/002071527101200411 Bernard Weiss McGill University Montreal, Canada This latest book from the pen of Professor Watt is not, in spite of its title, an introduction to Islam in the usual sense. Professor Watt has himself indicated in his Forward the limitations imposed upon the book by virtue of its inclusion in the Arab Background Series. It is quite in keeping, therefore, with the author's intention that such important aspects of the Islamic tradition as jurisprudence, ritual, mysticism, and even formal theology receive but scant attention, all of which would be treated at length in the typical introduction. Watt's main concern is with Islam as a social force, as a system of ideas and practices that has served to integrate and sustain one of the world's major communities for over thirteen centuries. His point of view is therefore, as he himself puts it, sociological; and to a large extent What is Islam? recapitulates views set forth in Islam and the Integration of Society, not to mention other previous works in which he has followed the sociological line. Watt's presentation of Islam