Fall 2025
CMCU 4354: Health, Law, and Islam
Taught by Ghida Aljuburi
The Muslim view is that the origins of Islamic legal code are rooted in the Muslim holy text (the Quran) and Sunnah (the portion of Muslim law based on the prophet Mohammed’s words or acts), and it is this jurisprudence that gives Islamic religious practice its connection and sustainability in everything including health law and policy.This seminar provides an overview of where Islam as a rule of law and global health intersect through subject specific segments. The seminar will start by exploring Islamic law and the history of healthcare under Islamic law and move into segments that discuss food hygiene jurisprudence, prophetic medicine as Sunnah, bioethics and Islam, mental health and Islamic law, migrant health and Islamic law, and finally sexual, reproductive and human rights under Islamic law. It presupposes the Quran and Sunnah as the legal documents and where relevant, the seminar will discuss comparative aspects to western perspectives. This seminar supports the notion that global health law is part of a growing health diplomacy where it becomes vital to understand key aspects of how culture and religion can influence health, policy and the law locally and globally.
HIST-1109: The Islamic World
Taught by TBD
From humble beginnings nearly 1500 years ago, to enormous power and prestige in the Middle Ages, to political decline and foreign occupation in the modern era, Islam has developed into a highly diverse, global tradition representing nearly one quarter of the world’s population. Yet it is most widely known through caricatures of terrorists and despots. This course examines that phenomenon. It focuses on the historical development of Muslim communities and their interactions with European and other powers. It emphasizes the impact of those interactions on Islam’s ideological and political developments. The interaction between religion and politics is a major sub-theme of the course.
CMCU 4001: Global Div Israel & Palestine
Taught by Nader Hashemi
The Israel-Gaza War is a transformative moment in global politics. It has produced heated debate and political commentary that recalls other watershed moments in international affairs, such as the end of the Cold War, 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why does the Israel-Palestine conflict continue to generate intense polarization, bitterness, and acrimony on a global scale? This is the core question that will inform this course. Within Western societies, the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza, have produced deep divisions in universities, medical and law schools, newsrooms, in Hollywood, among intellectuals, in the Democratic Party, and within the American Jewish community. Internationally, a chasm has emerged between the West and the global south over this issue as reflected in UN General Assembly and Security Council votes and the January 2024 International Court of Justice ruling on the question of genocide in Gaza. How can we objectively understand this ongoing global divide over the Israel/Palestine Conflict? What are its historical roots, how is it politically perpetuated and can this chasm be bridged? These are some of the questions that we will examine.
CMCU 3397: Muslim Women & the West
Taught by Shenila Khoja-Moolji
Muslim women often appear in Western imagination as oppressed, silent, and victimized. This course offers an alternate account of Muslim women by centering texts and aesthetics produced by them, along with ethnographic studies that give us a glimpse into their lives in the West. We encounter Muslim women through non-normative frames of agency, joy, community-building, and care. We observe the myriad ways in which they construct preferred futures against racist, capitalist, and heteronormative logics. A major thrust of the course is studying the lifeworlds of Shia Muslim women (a minority interpretive community within Islam).
INAF-1010-26: American Muslims
Taught by Shenila Khoja-Moolji
There are about 1.8 billion Muslims globally. Yet, in America, they are defined through rather narrow tropes. This course introduces students to the heterogeneity and diversity of American Muslims through the case study of Shia Ismaili Muslims. We consider writings and media produced by Ismaili Muslims to contemplate larger questions around representation, anticoloniality, feminism, racism, and migrant and refugee resettlement. Accordingly, we discover how Muslims in America hope to dismantle exploitative hierarchies and the role that religious ethics play in this project.
CMCU 4190 – Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia
Taught by Dr. Badar Khan-Suri
The course aims to provide an Asian response to the debate over the rise of ethno-nationalism, majoritarianism, and the challenges to minority rights. The case of India sheds light on specific reasons behind the decay of democracies. Moreover, the course will investigate how and why ethnoreligious majorities have been weaponizing their discourse against minorities. At the center of this discourse is the Hindutva ideology. The course will examine whether it represents an exclusionary vision. Moreover, the course will investigate whether such an ideology perceives minorities as a threat. Finally, the course will explore how democracy interacts with these dynamics—whether it mitigates or amplifies tensions arising from ethno-nationalism.