With over 1.5 billion followers worldwide, Islam is the second-largest and one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. As an aid for comparative religion studies, the Islamic Studies Collection brings together 34-volumes that provide an extensive background on the Islamic faith, its founder and prophet Muhhamad, and its relation to the Bible, Jesus Christ, and Christianity.

Originally a set of lectures presented as part of the Hartford-Lamson Lectures for 1909, Duncan Macdonald later added more content and revised the lectures for young missionaries. The lectures cover a broad array of subjects, including Muslim theology and metaphysics, the attitude of Islam to the Scriptures and to the person of Christ, Muslim ideas on education, and more.

The lectures contained in this volume outline the religious attitude and life of Muslims, as opposed to the systematic theology of Islam. Macdonald examines the extent of the mysticism contained in Islam and the role it plays in everyday Islamic religious-life.

Duncan B. Macdonald provides a general survey in the development of Muslim thought. Macdonald divides the history of Islam into three categories: the state, legal ideas and schools, and theological thought. The last and largest section focuses on Muslim theology, its controversies and conflicts, the rise of Mohammedan scholasticism, and discusses such movements as Wahhabism.