The Emergence of Islam is an attempt to present, in clear and simple English, the contents of a series of twelve lectures delivered by Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah in March 1980 at Islands University, Bahawalpur. The lectures, which were delivered without even the help of notes, are the result of a life-long study of, and reflections on, the early period of Islam by one of the best-known Muslim scholars of our time. In these lectures the learned author attempts o highlight the basic thrust of Islamic teachings and to outline the formative period of Islam's intellectual and institutional history. Drawing upon his vast reservoir of knowledge, Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah attempts to explain, in a manner that would make even a lay audience appreciate, the genesis and growth of Islamic thought, society and state, and of the institutions which were developed to translate Islamic norms into terms of practice.