Description: Offers a broad historical survey of the rules, values and interpretations relating to Salāt, the five daily prayers of Islam.
Brief description: Marion Holmes Katz is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Her publications include Body of Text: The Emergence of the Sunni Law of Ritual Purity (2002) and The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad: Devotional Piety in Sunni Islam (2007).
Review Quotes: 'In this rich, engaging, and illuminating book, Marion Holmes Katz attempts, and largely achieves, something remarkable. ... One of the best qualities of the book is its capacity to make clear that Islam is no monolith as regards prayer or, by implication, virtually any element of belief or practice.' Paul Powers, Journal of the American Oriental Society