Al-Din

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.

• Foreword Acknowledgements Editor’s Introduction M. A. DrazAl-Din: Background, context and summary Note on the translation Introduction: A brief overview of the history of the study of religions The pharaonic age The Hellenic age The Roman age The Christian age The Islamic age The European Renaissance 1 Determining the meaning of ‘religion’ 2 Religion, morality, philosophy and science Religion and morality Religion and philosophy Religion and the sciences 3 Humanity’s natural religious inclination The antiquity of religions The future of religion in the face of scientific progress Sources of the religious sentiment in human nature The social function of religions 4 On the origin of belief in God Underlying factors in the human mind Naturalism Animism Psychology Morality Sociology Revelation Conclusion Editor’s Bibliography Author’s Bibliography Index

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.