Resources

Course Number: HLS 2358

Course Title: Introduction to Islamic Law

Instructor: Intisar Rabb

This course will survey core concepts of Islamic law (sharia) in historical and comparative modern contexts. Popular perceptions of this legal system imagine it to be a static code from 7th-century Arabia. Islamic law is in fact a dynamic legal tradition, with a rich history that reveals processes of “legislation” and interpretation analogous to our own. It also developed substantive rulings and out of institutional structures quite different from our own. Those laws and structures evolved over time, with notable changes accompanying the breakup of the Islamic empire in the 10th and 12th centuries, colonial interventions in the 18th and 19th centuries, and independence movements in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Course Number: AFRAMER 181X/HDS 3689

Course Title: African Religion in the Diaspora

Instructor: Jacob Olupona

This course focuses on the history and phenomenology of African peoples’ religious experiences in the Americas. The historical and social processes that led to the emergence of African diasporic religions in Latin America and the Caribbean will form the core of our reading materials. Using a thematic approach, we will examine the role of myth, ritual, arts, and symbols as well as the social and political processes that explain the evolution of Black Atlantic religious traditions as formed by African indigenous traditions, African Christianity, and African Islam.

Course Number: ARABIC 152

Course Title: Introduction to Qur’an and Hadith

Instructor: Shady Nasser

An introduction to Quran and Ḥadīth disciplines. A survey of different schools of Quranic interpretation within the Arabic/Islamic tradition. The course introduces the discipline of Ḥadith (Prophetic tradition) and the role it plays in Quranic commentary. Topics include: The formation and collection of the Quran, Ḥadith, transmission, codification, Sunni and Shii Ḥadith collections, Schools of Quranic Exegesis, Esoteric interpretation, and the role of Quran and Hadith in the formation of Islamic law. No prior knowledge of Arabic or Islam is required.

Course Number: HAA 122X

Course Title:  Architecture in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar

Architecture of the eastern Mediterranean basin (at Italian, Ottoman, and Mamluk courts) with emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and transmission of the Romano-Byzantine heritage, science and technology, architectural practice, ornament, urban design, military, religious, and domestic architecture.

Course Number: HAA 12M

Course Title: Monuments of Islamic Architecture

Instructor: Mohsen Goudarzi

An introduction to key monuments and cities – Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, Isfahan, Istanbul, Samarqand – from the historical Islamic lands, ca. 650-1650 C.E., from Spain to India. Various building types are treated – e.g., mosques, palaces, schools, tombs, and shrines – as well as the factors that shaped them, whether artistic, cultural, socio-religious, political, or economic. Different methods of studying architecture are introduced in the course of the lectures.

Course Number: HDS 3172

Course Title: Spiritual Cultivation in Islam Part II: The Modern Era

Instructor: Khalil Abdur-Rashid

This course, as part of the new HDS Initiative on Islamic Spiritual Life and Service, is intended for students preparing for vocation in a variety of settings in which they will provide Islamically-inspired service and support. The course will acquaint students with Islamic pedagogy and practice on spiritual cultivation, highlighting the foundational importance of spiritual-ethical virtues in Islamic piety and the lifelong quest for nearness to and knowledge of God.

Course Number: HIND-URD 108

Course Title: Iqbal’s Urdu Poetry

Instructor: Hajnalka Kovacs

Iqbal’s Urdu Poetry is a comprehensive introduction to Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s (1877–1938) Urdu poetry. Along with reading and translating selected poems from Iqbal’s collections Bāng-e Darā, Bāl-e Jibrīl, Zarb-e Kalīm, and Armaghān-e Hijāz, we will discuss the grammatical, stylistic, and poetic features in his language as well the religious and political ideas expressed in the poems. The primary texts will be supplemented, whenever possible, with secondary readings in Urdu and English and relevant audio-visual material.

Course Number: ISLAMCIV 241R

Course Title: Approaches to Studying Indo-Muslim Culture and South Asian Islam

Instructor: Ali Asani

A seminar for graduate students focusing on current scholarship on Islamic civilization in South Asia.

Course Number: GENED 1087

Course Title: Multisensory Religion: Rethinking Islam

Instructor: Ali Asani

One need only walk into a church, a mosque, a temple, a synagogue or any place of worship to experience the beauty and aesthetic power of religion. For millions of people around the world, understanding of religion is forged through personal experiences, often embedded in the sound, visual, and literary arts. What does it mean to call some art “religious”? How can interpreting an individual believer’s engagement with the arts help us see “religion” in a new light?Using Islam as a case study, this course explores the multifaceted relationship between religion and the arts. We will learn to listen, see, and experience Islam by studying Muslims’ engagement with the literary arts (scriptures, panegyrics, love lyrics, epic romances, folk songs, and folk tales), as well as sound and visual arts (Quran and poetic recitations, music, dance, drama, architecture, calligraphy, and miniature painting). Weaving the voices of poets, writers and musicians with those of clerics, mystics and politicians, we will consider how the arts create a religious tradition and shape the worldviews of Muslim communities around the world.Given the cultural diversity of Muslim societies, the course draws on material from regions beyond the Middle East, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. This course assumes no prior knowledge of Islam.

Course Number: HAA 224M

Course Title: Drawing in the Islamic Lands

Instructor: David Roxburgh

The seminar examines the medium of drawing in the Islamic lands, focusing on the post-Mongol through early modern periods throughout the Middle East, Iran, India, and Central Asia. Topics include the medium, materiality and practice of drawing; subject matters; purposes; formats (single-sheet) and contexts (manuscripts and albums); autonomy as an art form; and intermedial relationships that include those to writing. Individual artists working in Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman contexts are also a point of focus.

Course Number: HAA 126V

Course Title: Arts, Artifacts, Architecture: Ottoman Visual & Material Cultures between East and West

Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar

Examines multimedia arts, monuments, gardens, and cities of the Ottoman Empire straddling Asia, Europe and Africa. The selective fusion of Ottoman-Islamic, Byzantine, and Italian Renaissance artistic traditions, and the earliest pictorial representations of the Islamic East by European artists working in the “Orientalist” mode are considered.

Course Number: RELIGION 2810

Course Title: Islamic Institutions – Middle East & Beyond: Modern Transformations & Debates (19th-21st centuries)

Instructor: Malika Zeghal

This graduate seminar explores the transformation of Islamic institutions in the modern period, such as religious endowments (Awqaf), sharia courts, and Islamic education. We will engage with the historiography of these institutions and with primary sources in Arabic or in translation that will help us open new paths for research.