Islam in Five Minutes
Edited by
Edith Szanto [+–]
University of Alabama
Dr. Edith Szanto is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in the Department of Religion. Formerly, she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. Dr. Szanto received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012. While at the University of Toronto, she worked on Iraqi Shi‘i refugees and their ritual mourning practices in Syria from soon after the American war in Iraq in 2003 up until the Syrian Uprising in 2011. Then, as she moved to Iraqi Kurdistan, she shifted her focus to religion, nationalism, and gender in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, where Syrian refugees soon began to arrive. Next, she was able to witness the rise of ISIS (aka Da‘ish) and its effects on Kurdish and Arab religious practices and discourses from the front row. Dr. Szanto has published extensively on materials gathered by in Sulaimani for eight years. Since coming to the University of Alabama in 2019, she has been stepping back from fieldwork and has been thinking more about some of the larger questions, such as the work that categories do for scholars when examining data.
Part of the Religion in 5 Minutes series, Islam in Five Minutes provides an accessible and lively introduction to questions about Islam, Muslims, their discourses and practices. Suitable for beginning students and the general reader, the book offers more than 60 brief essays on a wide range of fascinating questions about Islam and its study, such as:
Is Islam a religion or a political ideology? Why should we study Islam? What was Muhammad like and why does that matter? How did Islam spread? Did Muhammad appoint a successor? When was the Qur’an standardized? What are Hadith and are Hadith historical records? Is Islam and the Qur’an compatible with science? Do Muslims believe in the God of Christianity? Are Sufis Muslim? Can you be Shi’i and Sufi? Can you be a non-Muslim and a Sufi? What is the sharia? How is sharia different from common law? What is the ultimate purpose or goal of Islam?
Each essay is written by a leading authority and offers succinct, insightful answers along with suggestions for further reading, making the book an ideal starting point for classroom use or personal browsing.
Because each chapter can be read in about five minutes, the books offer ideal supplementary resources in classrooms or an engaging read for those curious about the world around them.
Series: Religion in 5 Minutes
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781000000000
Price (Hardback)
£70.00 / $90.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781000000000
Price (Paperback)
£16.99 / $21.95
ISBN (eBook)
9781000000000
Price (eBook)
Individual
£16.99 / $21.95
Institutional
£350.00 / $700.00
£16.99 / $21.95
Institutional
£350.00 / $700.00
Publication
01/09/2026
Pages
224
Size
216 x 140mm
Readership
students and general readers
