Spring 2024

ARAB/CMCU 4450: Islam in South Asia

Taught by Jonathan A.C. Brown
Islam is often associated immediately with the Middle East, but Islam’s intellectual and religious landscape over the last two centuries is arguably a product of South Asian scholars and religio-political movements. This course will offer a survey of Islamic thought in South Asia from the medieval period to the modern, from Muslims living as a ruling minority to Muslims negotiating colonial rule and finally minority status.

ARAB 6950/CMCU 5200: Readings in Hadith Studies

Taught by Jonathan A.C. Brown
This course will provide an in-depth exploration, at a gradual level, of important genres of Muslim engagement with the Hadith tradition, Islam’s secondary (though arguably more impactful than anything else) scripture.

CMCU/CCAS 4200: Modern Islamic Political Thought

Taught by Nader Hashemi

This seminar course seeks to provide both an overview of key ideas and themes that have informed mainstream Muslim politics during the 20^th century (and early 21^st century) as well provide an engagement with influential thinkers and texts that have shaped Muslim political behavior during this period. We will examine the tension between tradition and modernity, the debate on God’s sovereignty versus popular sovereignty and more broadly the debate on the moral bases of legitimate political authority that Muslim thinkers were grappling with during this time period. We will also explore how prominent Muslim intellectuals have sought to engage with and respond to the rise of nationalism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, human rights, colonialism, imperialism and Zionism. The approach that this course will take to the study of political thought is derivative of the Cambridge School of Western political theory, in particular the work of Quentin Skinner.  According to this school, classic texts are not monolithic or freestanding but must be understood by focusing on the historical, economic and political context in which they were written. Similarly, unearthing the author’s intentions in the study of political tracts/treatises is critical to the more general understanding of political thought regardless of the civilizational tradition under investigation. While this is an introduction to modern Islamic political thought this is not an introductory course in Islamic theology, Middle East politics, or contemporary Muslim political sociology.  Previous knowledge is assumed. Ideally, students will have taken at least one course in modern Middle East history/politics. Students without a background in the modern Middle East/Arab-Islamic world are asked to consult with the instructor before enrolling in this course. Students will be evaluated based on seminar participation/participation, a final term paper and a final interview.

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).