1) Issues facing Muslims Today (the Image of Islam in the West, migrations, islamophobia).
Recommended reading:
- Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong, in The Atlantic on-line, January 2002, available on-line: http://www.iefpedia.com/english/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/What-Went-Wrong.pdf
- http://www.pewforum.org/2018/10/29/eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/
- Miqdaad Versi, Islamophobia is real. Stop the obsession with semantics, The Guardian, 15 May 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/15/islamophobia-semantics-word
- Hatem Bazian, Professor Tariq Ramadan and France's Islamophobia, Daily Sabah, 15 April 2018: https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/hatem-bazian/2018/04/16/professor-tariq-ramadan-and-frances-islamophobia
2) Film – Inside Mecca (on Pilgrimage, the fifth pillar of Islam), National Geographic.
3) The 5 pillars of Islam.
Recommended reading:
-Andrew Rippin, Muslims. Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Routledge, London, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 86-99 (chapter 7: Ritual Practice).
4) Geographies of Islam: maps from Andreas Birken, Atlas of Islam 1800-2000, Brill, Leiden, 2010.
5) Pre-Islamic Arabia.
Recommended reading:
-The Cambridge History of Islam ed. by Holt, Lambton, Lewis, vol. 1A, chapter 1 (Pre-Islamic Arabia by Irfan Shahid), pp. 3-29.
6) The Revelation of the Holy Koran. Prophet Muhammad.
Recommended readings:
-The Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 1A, chapter 2 (Muhammad by Montgomery Watt), pp. 30-56.
-Andrew Rippin, Muslims. Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Routledge, London, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 14-29 (chapter 2: The Qur'an).
Materials in case you decide to write a paper:
Michael Cook, Muhammad, Oxford University Press, 1983.
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford University Press, 1953.
H.A.R. Gibb, Mohammedanism, Oxford University Press, 1962.
A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad. A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, Oxford University Press, 1955.
Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A prophet for our time, Harper Collins, NY, 2007.
7) The succession to the Prophet Muhammad and the split between Sunni and Shi’i Islam.
Recommended reading:
Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam, Yale University Press, 1985, pp. 11-23 (chapter 2: The Question of the Succession to Muhammad).
Further reading:
- Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, W.W. Norton, New York, 2007.
8) Sharia law, law schools in Sunni Islam. The role of ijtihad in sex change in Iran, BBC interview with Hojatolleslam Kariminya), hisba (the case of Nasr Abu Zayd).
Recommended readings:
- Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Clarendon, Oxford, 1991, pp. 1- 5 (introduction), 10-15 (Muhammad and the Koran), 57-68 (The Later Schools of Law and Their 'Classical' Theory).
- Ibn Taymiya, Public Duties in Islam. The Institution of the Hisba, The Islamic Foundation, Leicester, Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil (chapter 6), pp. 73-81.
- OBITUARY Georges Tamer NASR HAMID ABU ZAYD, Int. J. Middle East Stud. 43 (2011), 193–195 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/411A97171F087B18225E90F3940ED353/S0020743810001558a.pdf/nasr-hamid-abu-zayd.pdf)
9) Today Islam. Liberal Islam.
Recommended reading:
Charles Kurzman, “Introduction. Liberal Islam and Its Islamic Context”, in Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam. A Sourcebook, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 3-26.
10) Civil societies in Muslim Countries.
Recommended reading:
Mohammed Arkoun, “Locating Civil Society in Islamic Context”, in Amyn B. Sajoo (ed.), Civil Society in the Muslim World. Contemporary Perspectives, I.B. Tauris, 2002, pp. 35-60.
11) The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Recommended reading:
Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt. The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, Ithaca Press, 1998, pp. 1-43.
12) Shi'i Islam and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Recommended reading:
- Michael Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, Penguin, 2014, chapters 2 and 3.
13) 9/11 and Global Jihadism.
Recommended reading:
Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton pp. pp. Vii-ix, 1-8 (introduction), 9-17 (The Prophet's Lesson on Conduct in War), 43-54 (The Religious and Moral Doctrine of Jihad).
14) Islam in the West. Film: Kassablanka by Guy Lee Thys.
Recommended reading:
- Patrick Haenni and Stéphane Lathion (eds.), The Swiss Minaret Ban: Islam in Question, Religioscope, Fribourg, 2011, pp. 7-9 (Switzerland without Minarets by Jean-François Mayer), 19-22 (The Minaret in the History of Islam by Rachid Benzine).
Suggested readings (for those students writing a paper on this topic):
- Stefano Allievi, Conflicts over Mosques in Europe. Policy issues and trends, NEF Initiative on Religion and Democracy in Europe, Alliance Publishing Trust, London, 2009-
- Adam Lebor, A Heart Turned East. Among the Muslims of Europe and America, Little, Brown and Company, London, 1997.
- Zareena Grewal, Islam is a Foreign Country. American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority, NY University Press, 2014.
15) Arab Springs (film: The Square) vs. the Iranian Green Wave of 2009 and more recent protests
Recommended readings:
- Asef Bayat, Why did Iran's Green Wave not feel the Arab Spring? Sadighi Annual Lectures, Amsterdam 2012.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/iran-protest-mashaad-green-class-labor-economy/551690/
16) Foreign Fighters.
Recommended reading:
- Francesco Marone, Foreign Fighers: A Problem for Asian Countries Too, ISPI, Milan, December 2018_ https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/foreign-fighters-problem-asian-countries-too-21723
17) Gender and Islam I: Women in the Koran.
Recommended reading:
Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women in the Qur'an, Traditions and Interpretations, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 67-82 (The chapter of Mary), 85-103 (The Mothers of the Believers in the Qur'an).
18) Gender and Islam II; discriminations against women and feminisms.
Recommended reading:
Fatima Mernissi, Women's Rebellion & Islamic Memory, Zed Books, London, 1996, pp. 109-120 (chapter X: Feminity as Subversion: Reflections on the Muslim Concept of Nushuz).
Suggested readings (for those students writing papers on this topic):
- Abdullah A. An-Na'im (ed.), Islamic Family Law in a Changing World, Zed Books, London, 2002.
- Maaike Voorhoeve, Gender and Divorce Law in North Africa. Sharia, Customs and the Personal Status Code in Tunisia, I.B. Tauris, London, 2014.
-Shahla Laheri, Law of Desire. Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran, Syracuse University Press, 1989.
19) Papers presentation
20) Huda Shaarawi, Egypt's First Feminist.
Recommended reading:
Sania Sharawi Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, I.B. Tauris, London, 2012, pp. 1-58.
21) Women activists
Recommended reading:
https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/9-inspiring-muslim-women-shattering-stereotypes/#.XD5Rx5yJLIU
Suggested reading on Egypt (for those students writing papers on this topic):
Wanda Krause, Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East. Islamic and Secular Organizations in Egypt, I.B. Tauris, London, 2012.
22) Female Genital Mutilation
Recommended reading:
- Nawal al-Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve. Women in the Arab World, Zed Books, London, 1980, pp 33-43 (circumcision of girls).
23) Child brides in Yemen – Khadija al-Salami (film)
Recommended reading:
Farian Sabahi, “Gender Issues after the Yemeni Spring”, in After the Yemeni Spring. A Survey on the Transition, ed. by Anna Maria Medici, Urbino Research Team on International Relations and Human Development, Mimesis, Milan, 2012.
24) Controversial Muslim intellectuals: Tariq Ramadan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Articles will be provided and discussed in class.
25) The status of religious minorities in Islam (dhimmis)
I Christians
Articles will be provided and discussed in class.
26) The status of religious minorities in Islam (dhimmis)
II The Jews
Articles will be provided and discussed in class.
27) The status of religious minorities in Islam (dhimmis)
III The Bahai
Articles will be provided and discussed in class.
28) Final discussion