RELST 2626

Modern Islam

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte led a French expedition to Egypt, fighting a campaign that would extend to Syria and last three years. Napoleon's journey, however, signalled far more than the beginning of a military exercise: over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Muslims throughout the Middle East and South Asia came to engage with the ideas, technologies, and political power of Europe in unprecedented ways that deeply shaped the path of Islamic history. This course, in turn, explores these shifts over the past two centuries. It is designed to introduce students not only to the leading ideas and movements among Muslims over the past two hundred years, but also to how these ideas have shaped the lives of Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries and Muslim-minority countries alike. It will push students to consider how Islam has changed over the past two centuries and how these changes are similar to and different from the transformations that have emerged in other religious traditions. Topics will include: Gender and Modesty; Prayer and Ritual; Ethics; Constitutionalism; Sufism; and Modern Islamic Movements. Through these topics, students will examine the diverse contexts in which and methods by which Muslims have interpreted their foundational texts, and more generally, their often-competing understandings of Islam what it means to be a Muslim.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS)
Course Attribute (CU-ITL)

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