Blessed Life of the Prophet Muhammad

Wednesday, October 8th
(midterm handed out here)
*Karen Armstrong, Muhammad, 9-90.
*Music: "Ay Muhammad", by the Bauls of Bengal.

Click here for your midterm.

Monday October 13th (fall break)

Wednesday October 15th:  
*Armstrong, Muhammad, 91-210.
*Music:  Ya Sahib al-jamal, Sabri Brothers
(Midterm due on this day)

Monday October 20th:
Armstrong, Muhammad, 211-266.
*Music: "Wa salla Allahuu 'ala nurin", by Qari Wahid Zaffar Qasm
 

Islamic Law

Wednesday, October 22nd
al-Maqasid, 1-69

Monday October 27th:  (start Ramadan)
al-Maqasid, 70-94
al-Maqasid, 103-166, 185-195.
*Hadith examples:
www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah

www.cco.caltech.edu/~calmsa/sahih.html

Final exams are due to the religion office in Hascall Hall, no later than 4 pm on Wednesday. Hand the papers to our saintly secretary, Jeanie. They must be typed, stapled, with your name on top. They should also feature page numbers at the bottom. No late papers will be accepted.

dear friends... 

Here is your last to offer some thoughts on the vast array of stuff that we have read, analyzed, critiqued, laughed at, and discussed this semester.   Keep your comments to each question to about 4 pages.    I want you to take a step back from each individual book, and give yourself an opportunity to synthesize things, to bring them together. 

Make sure that your papers are not just strings of quotes.  What I really want to hear loud and clear is your own voice.  I want it to be informed by the readings, of course, but I want to hear your voice.

1)   We have spent a good bit of the time in this class looking at classical discourses of Islam (law, Sufism, philosophy, Qur’an, political narratives, etc.).     As we get closer to a full engagement with modernity, I want you to discuss what kind of adjustments/contestations/challenges have taken place within each of these.  In other words, what aspects of the tradition have continued down to today?  Which aspects are modified and transformed in the encounter with modernity?  You don’t need to address each and every single one of the discourses, but do be sure to address more than one.

  In your answer, be sure to engage the question of whether these changes are seen as being the product of “westernization”, or the Muslims’ own encounter with modernity.  In other words, where are the boundaries (fluid as they are) between modernization and westernization for the Muslims we have studied this term.

2)   If you look over the readings for this term, you will notice that the issue of gender has been a consistent lens through which we have looked at Islam and Muslim societies.    Half of the writings in this course from female authors.  I want you to look at authors like Leila Ahmed, Asma Barlas, Tazim Kassam, Sa’diyya Shaikh, Zoharah Simmons.    Move beyond a simple focus on “gender relations”, and discuss how for these female authors, their larger broader reading of Islam itself is distinctive.  In other words, what are their assumptions about Islamic imperative on justice, notions of plurality of the colonial/postcolonial self, reading of the Qur’an, etc.     

Then, I want you to explore how these concerns are somehow, explicitly or implicitly, connected to the feminist commitments of these authors.    

That is it.  Breathe.   A lot during the next week.    More than once.  

It has been an immense privilege and honor to share this class with you.  All of you are much beloved.

omid