In recent decades, academic debates on how to conceptualize 'Islam' as an object of study and how to approach it theoretically have been revitalised. Not only has research on Islam grown enormously and become much more differentiated, but Islam is also being discussed more intensively in society and politics than ever before.

This reader, which brings together the perspectives of various disciplines, provides an overview of academic approaches to Islam against the backdrop of these, in some cases tense, entanglements. Through two contributions from scholars working on Buddhism and Hinduism, these debates are situated in the context of broader trajectories of research history. In sum, this book does not only offer its readers entry points to a more complex and refined understanding of Islam, but also to research processes within the study of Islam as well as religion in general.