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Religion/History 407: Islam

by Dr. Anna Bigelow, North Carolina State University

Course Description
Approximately 1439 years ago the revelation known as the Qur'an began to be received by Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Abdul Muttalib ibn Hashim. Although the Qur'an and its Messenger regard themselves as part of a long, continuous tradition of revelations from the one God, Allah, there is no doubt that the impact of the message brought about something wholly new in terms of religion, philosophy, law, society, politics, art, and culture. In this course we will investigate the historical development of the Islamic tradition in its many contexts. The course is divided into three parts: Texts, Histories, and Contexts. In Part One: Texts we will read the Qur'an, commentaries on the Qur'an from various periods and perspectives, the Hadith Literature that records the sayings and doings of Muhammad the Messenger of Allah, and several other early textual sources on the birth of Islam. In Part Two: Histories, we will turn to the historical growth and expansion of the Muslim ummah or community, the development of social and political structures, and the numerous competitions and conflicts within the ummah to define Islam and Islamicate society. In Part Three: Contexts we will examine several contextual manifestations of Islam

Objectives
By the completion of this class student will be able to:
• Identify the major elements of the Islamic traditions.
• Interpret Islam's origins, growth, and development in the Middle East and beyond.
• Understand the various cultural contexts and critical issues in the Islamic traditions.
• Read and critically evaluate often challenging primary texts.
• Implement a critical study of Islamic traditions.

Prerequisites
Upper level History or Religious Studies coursework.

Texts
• Abdel Haleem, M.A.S. The Qur'ān. NY: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Maalouf, Amin. Leo Africanus. New York: New Amsterdam, 1986.
• Berkey, Jonathan. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Calder, Norman. Classical Islam. NY: Routledge, 2003.
• Nizam ad-Din Awliya’. Morals for the Heart. Louisville, NY: Paulist Press, 1992.

All of these materials should be available at the NCSU Bookstore. If something is not there, tell the Bookstore that you need to order a copy. Also, it is worth checking amazon.com, labyrinth books, allibris.com, or any number of other on-line book sources to see if you can acquire less expensive and/or used copies. All the reading assignments are from one of these texts or are on electronic reserve. (Reserve texts can be found at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/rbr/e res search.html (search under REL407)

Course Schedule
The reading assignments listed for a particular date and lesson must be read prior to that class, at least once.

August 24: Introduction

PART ONE: TEXTS
August 29: The Qur'an as Warning and Revelation
M.A.S. Haleem, The Qur'ān, Suras 114-67

August 31: The Qur'an as Guide
Revelations of Power, Light, and Mercy
The Koran, Suras 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 17, 24, 36, 55
ERESERVE: Maududi, Maulana, selections from "The Meaning of the Qur'an," pp. 32-34, 175-179
Yusuf Ali on the Ayat al-Kursi

September 5: The Qur'an in context
The Qur’an, Suras 9, 19, 25, 26
ERESERVE: Sells, Approaching the Qur'an pp. 1-31,
William Graham, "Qur'an as Spoken Word,"pp. 23-40
Handout: The Mu’allaqa of ‘Imr al-Qais

September 7: Muhammad in the Sources
Classical Islam, Chapter 2

September 12: Muhammad in the Tradition
ERESERVE: Schimmel, 9-23
Web Reading: Al-Busiri, Mantle Poem
Hadith (from Muslim), Mi'raj, http://www.noblesanctuary.com/miraj.html
Paper One Due

September 14: Hadith
Classical Islam, Chapter 3
Web Reading: Forty Hadith Qudsi
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/hadithqudsi.html
Al-Kulayni http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/kafi

September 19: Religious History, dhimmi, and ahl al kitab
Classical Islam, Chapter 4
ERESERVE: Khaled Abou el Fadl, “The Place of Tolerance in Islam”

September 21: film Empire of Faith

September 26: Commentaries and Consolidation
Classical Islam, Chapter 5
Reread the Fatiha, find alternative translations

September 28: Commentaries and Consolidation, part 2
ERESERVE: Al-Tabari, The Opening of the Book," pp. 61-113
Sells, "Sufi Commentaries on the Qur'an"
Web Reading: Shi'a commentaries on the Fatiha: http://www.al-islam.org/quran/,
http://www.almizan.org/Tafseer/fateha1.asp

October 3: MIDTERM EXAM

PART TWO: HISTORIES
October 5: Islam and World History
ERESERVE: Eaton, "Islamic History as World History"
Ibn Khaldun, Introduction to The Muqaddimah, pp. 11-29

October 10: Before Islam
Berkey, Part I, pp. 1-53

October 12: FALL BREAK NO CLASS

October 17: The Advent of Islam
Berkey, Part II, pp. 57-109

October 19: Shi'i Traditions
Berkey, Part III, pp. 113-140
Web Reading: Nahaj al-Balagha, 83, 87, 100, 154, 186
http://al-islam.org/nahj/
Hadith about succession:
http://www.al-islam.org/thaqalayn/nontl/Versions.htm
http://www.al-islam.org/thaqalayn/nontl/Occasions.htm

October 24: The Imams: Husayn, al-Jafari, and the Shi’a Sects
ERESERVE: Momen, Moojan, "The Lives of the Imams and Early Divisions among the Shi'is
Farhad Daftary, from The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines
Web Reading: Annemarie Schimmel, “Karbala and the Imam Husayn in Persian and Indo-Muslim Literature,” al-Serat, Vol XII, 1986. http://www.al-islam.org/al-serat/Karbala-Schimmel.HTM

October 26: Sunnis and Dhimmis
Berkey, 152-175
ERESERVE: TBA

October 31: Islamic and Islamicate History
Berkey, Part IV, pp. 179-269

PART THREE: CONTEXTS
November 2: Law and Ritual
Classical Islam, Chapter 7

November 7: Women
ERESERVE: Ahmed, Chapter 3, "Women and the Rise of Islam" pp. 41-63
Wadud, Chapter 2, "The Quranic View of Women"

November 9: Jihad: the Greater and the Lesser
ERESERVE: Cornell, "Jihad"
Roy Parviz Mottahedeh and Ridwan al-Sayyid, "The Idea of the Jihad in Islam before the Crusades" in Angeliki Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, editors, The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2001.
Hadith on Jihad

November 14: Sufi Traditions
Classical Islam, Chapter 8
Nizamuddin Awliya’, Morals for the Heart, Introduction

November 16: Sufi Traditions
Nizamuddin Awliya’ Morals for the Heart, pages TBA

November 21: Paper presentations
Paper Two Due

November 23: THANKSGIVING BREAK NO CLASS

November 28: Controversies: Music and Pilgrimage
ERESERVE: Ahmad al-Ghazali, "Bawariq al-Ilma'" pp. 69-81, 101-118
Ruzbihan Baqli, "On Listening to Music," translation Carl Ernst, pp 95-103
Shah Waliullah and the Dargah
P.M. Currie, "The Pilgrimage to Ajmer"

November 30: Art & Architecture
ERESERVE: Sheila Blair & Jonathan Bloom, "Art and Architecture: Themes and Variations," from
The Oxford History of Islam, pp. 215-267

December 5: Fiction and History
Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus

December 7: LAST CLASS
Leo Africanus & wrap up

December 14: FINAL EXAM, 8-11 am

If you'd like to share your syllabus, please send it to us as an MS Word attachement at studyofislam@gmail.com.

	Bruce Lawrence, The Qur'an: Books That changed the World, Grove Press, 2008.
	Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry, Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006.
	Ebrahim Moosa, Ghazali and Poetics of Imagination, Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005.