The study of Islamic philosophy has entered a new and exciting phase in the last few years. Both the received canon of Islamic philosophers and the narrative of the course of Islamic philosophy are in the process of being radically questioned and revised. Most twentieth-century Western scholarship on Islamic philosophy has focused on the period from the ninth century to the twelfth. It is a measure of the transformation that is currently underway in the field that, unlike other reference works, the Oxford Handbook has striven to give roughly equal weight to every century, from the ninth to the twentieth. The Handbook is also unique in that its 30 chapters are work-centered rather than person- or theme-centered, in particular taking advantage of recent new editions and translations that have renewed interest and debate around the Islamic philosophical canon.

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy gives both the advanced student and active scholar in Islamic philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, a strong sense of what a work in Islamic philosophy looks like and a deep view of the issues, concepts, and arguments that are at stake. Most importantly, it provides an up-to-date portrait of contemporary scholarship on Islamic philosophy.

在过去的几年里，伊斯兰哲学的研究进入了一个新的、令人兴奋的阶段。所接受的伊斯兰哲学家的典籍和伊斯兰哲学进程的叙述都处于被彻底质疑和修改的过程中。二十世纪西方关于伊斯兰哲学的学术研究大多集中在九世纪到十二世纪这段时间。与其他参考书不同的是，《牛津大学手册》努力对从第九世纪到第二十世纪的每一个世纪都给予大致相同的重视，这是对该领域目前正在进行的变革的一种衡量。该手册的独特之处在于，它的30个章节是以作品为中心，而不是以人物或主题为中心，特别是利用了最近的新版本和翻译，重新激发了人们对伊斯兰哲学典籍的兴趣和辩论。

牛津大学伊斯兰哲学手册》给伊斯兰哲学、神学和思想史方面的高级学生和活跃的学者提供了一种强烈的感觉，即伊斯兰哲学作品是什么样子的，以及对所涉及的问题、概念和论点的深刻看法。最重要的是，它提供了当代伊斯兰哲学学术研究的最新画像。