Shi'ite Islam

Despite a growing interest in the last hundred years in both orientalism and comparative religions, and the fact that there are over fifty million Shi a Muslims, until now there has been no thorough and objective study of that part of Islam called Shi ism for Western scholars. The present work provides a clear account of the origin, history, and doctrines of an important sector of the Muslim religious community. It is written by a distinguished leader of that community, who, in addition to possessing a thorough knowledge of its traditional history and literature, presents its rational-philosophic, traditional-legal, and gnostic-mystical elements with warmth and sympathy. The result is a well-integrated general picture which succeeds in giving the reader a clear and comprehensive picture of how the Shi ite Muslim views his religion.