Part 1: Religion and common life in the pre-Islamic Near East. Early civilizations and the origins of Judaism and Christianity ; Pre-Islamic Arabia : beliefs, values, way of life
Part 2: The coming of Islam : the prophet, his people, and God's religion. Muhammad and the early Muslim community ; The Arab conquests and Islamic rule : the stuggle for a unified Umma
Part 3: The Islamic religious system. The basic beliefs and worship practices of Islam ; The nature and function of the Qur'an ; The prophet's Sunna as preserved in the Ḥadīth ; Muslim creeds and theologies : their purposes and varieties ; Law and the state in classical Islamic formulations
Part 4: The Sufi way of mysticism and fellowship. Islamic mysticism and the disciplines of exoteric piety ; Masters and disciples : the forms and functions of Sufi orders
Part 5: Patterns of Islamic personal and communal life. The Islamic life cycle and the family ; Ideals and realities of Islamic community life
Part 6: Islam in the modern world. Major movements and trends in renewal and reform ; Three forms of Islamic revival : "fundamentalism," feminism, and establishing the Umma in North America ; Whither Islam and the Muslims? Progressive Muslims with a vision of an "Islam without borders"
Glossary.