This course offers a contemporary understanding of the Muslim city. It draws heavily on the writings of key scholars and the way in which each has developed his/her thoughts on the role of Islam in shaping the urban form, and the overall built environment. The course covers issues that pertain to Islamic perspectives to urban spatial structures, the physical aspects of the urban form, and the role of the socio-cultural factors and legal system in the formation of Muslim cities. This course is the equivalent of UDA 620

This course familiarizes students with the essential research methodologies in Islamic Studies needed to write effective seminar papers, dissertation proposals, and dissertations at the doctoral level. Students will refine their analytical skills to design and deliver original and innovative research projects. The course focusses on the concepts, language, methods, and applications of research that will facilitate the formulation clear thesis questions. More practically it will familiarize students with the conventions of transliteration, citation, bibliography, literature reviews and textual analysis.

This course engages with the central themes of classical Islamic philosophy and theology and assesses its effect on the culture of Muslim life from the seventh century to the present. Students will learn the history, concepts, doctrines, and philosophers in the Islamic tradition, including modern contemporary trends in Islamic philosophy and theology. The course also addresses primary concepts promoted in the Islamic philosophy and theology, such as Divine Nature and the Existence of God, Ethics, and Epistemology and Divine Discourse, and their manifestation in various doctrinal standpoints.

This course will present a variety of epistemological and methodological approaches to the study of religions in academic discourse, with a focus on how these perspectives relate to Islamic studies, and how they may be employed in graduate research. Such approaches include those of phenomenology, psychology, history, sociology, anthropology, postcolonial and de-colonial studies and women’s studies. The course will also will explore a range of pertinent themes, including but not limited to, religious experience, the sacred and the profane, pilgrimage and ritual, tolerance, co-existence, and the “other”, and myth and mysticism.

This discusses the incremental evolution of Islamic legal theory to contextualize the juristic contributions of the foremost personalities who played a major role in its genesis. The course examines the sources of Islamic law (al-masadir), its evidence (al-adilla), its guiding principles (al-usul), its jurisprudential maxims (al-qawa‘id) and its underlying objectives (al-maqasid), which underpin the structure of Islamic legal theory.

This course equips students with the necessary tools to analyze the Quranic text using the latest developments in Quranic Studies. It critically examines the collection, compilation, and standardization of the Quran, exploring its main features, structure, and themes. Methodologies in Quran Studies are applied to key topics including the nature of God, the relationship between the Divine and humanity, prophethood and other religions, as well as death and the afterlife. Furthermore, the course delves into Quranic teachings on pressing issues like jihad and warfare, social justice, and gender relations.

This course is composed of three essential parts: the first examines the Prophetic Personality as it is represented in Islam’s primary textual sources of the Qur’an and Hadith. Emphasis is laid upon the genesis of Hadith as a genre within Islamic learning and its position as one of the fundamental sciences of this tradition. The second part discusses the genre of biographical writing concerning the Prophetic Personality and in particular, stresses the importance of sirah literature. The final part of the course focuses on the methodology of Hadith literature.

"Madinah" refers to the Islamic city founded by Prophet Muhammad (622-632). It signifies comprehensive knowledge encompassing legal, ethical, social, political, and religious aspects, surpassing individual experiences. The term embodies authority, submission, obedience, conformity, and consensus, shaping the nature of the Islamic City. As a culmination of generations' urban experiences, Madinah serves as a basis for critical reflection and reevaluation of the interdependent conditions of urban existence.

The course consists of three parts. Part one focuses on the foundational aspects of Islamic Ethics, including key contributions and theoretical principles. Part two explores the practical application of these principles to contemporary topics such as bioethics, socio-political issues, inter-religious and inter-cultural themes. The final part trains students in conducting research that embraces the interdisciplinary nature of the field and effectively addresses the ethical dilemmas arising in the modern age.

This course presents an overview of the key social and political issues currently facing the Muslim world. It is divided into four parts. First, it examines the transformation of traditional communal Muslim societies into modern nation states. Second, it analyzes the era of globalization and global governance and the variegated impact throughout the Muslim world. Third, it explores the different facets of humanitarianism, migration, and the refugee crisis in Muslim societies. Lastly, it analyzes the Muslim world in relation to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

This course introduces students to gender and family topics in Islamic foundational texts and Muslim societies across different time periods. It explores how religious sources portray sex, sexuality, and family dynamics. Additionally, the course examines historical and sociological studies on gender and family in various eras and locations, spanning from the early days of Islam to the present. It critically engages with contentious issues such as gender and religious leadership, financial matters, sexual expression, spousal relations, and laws related to marriage and divorce.

This course instructs students how to address the critical issue of climate change and develop models for sustainability from within the Islamic tradition. The course addresses the state of the environmental crisis and analyzes its philosophical underpinnings, which are then juxtaposed with the manner in which the relationship between God, humanity and the natural environment is presented in the classical Islamic sources. The course analyzes the development of contemporary “ecotheologies” and the movements towards sustainability and environmental justice in the Muslim world.

This course addresses the issues involved in the translation of Islam’s primary sacred texts and their associated fields of learning. It examines the translation of a range of Islamic texts in a number of disciplines such as Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), scholastic theology (kalam) Arab philosophy (falsafa) and mysticism (tasawwuf). The course identifies the plethora of problems of various levels and layers of meaning in terms of equivalence and transfer of intended message in the translations and will train students in the process of translation assessment.

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of manuscript arts spanning the early days of Islam to the early modern era. It delves into the study of materials such as binding and paper, as well as the layout, scripts, and decoration of manuscripts. Students will learn how to assess and read handwritten Arabic texts predating the 20th century. The course provides training in codicology, enabling students to describe the physical aspects of manuscripts. Additionally, it covers reading various texts, surveying Arabic manuscript collections through printed catalogs and online databases, and techniques for preserving and digitizing manuscripts.

The seminar presents a theoretical or practical topic proposed by the faculty beyond what is offered in existing courses. The seminar is exploratory and relates to the ongoing research of the instructor. It requires active and critical participation from the students with regard to discussions of the source material in the light of relevant theoretical and methodological approaches.

This course explores the development of the Arab-Islamic Intellectual tradition and traces the genesis of jurisprudential learning by examining the influence of Islam’s primary sacred texts and how they shaped the religion’s legal history. The literary production of this evolution will then be discussed by selectively examining a range of texts concerning the principles of Islamic jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh).