ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shares two encounters, one from his childhood and another from his early anthropological studies, with Islam through the practice and views of two Muslims, Abd al-Kader, a door-to-door salesman, and Abd al Hadi, an imam. The differences between the two Muslims’ interpretations of Islam are shown and compared them with the scholarly presentation of Islam. The author presents some of the main aspects of Islam on which most Muslims agree, as far as doctrine and practice is concerned. The chapter provides a short history of the beginning of the Muslim community. The author stresses that the scholarly representation of Islam should be understood not as Islam itself, but as a map that can help orientate us in a very variegated and confusing territory. Islam, as any other religion, relies on rituals symbolizing rites of passage.
