THE VOCABULARY OF ISLAM (Religion 1806)

Professor Shahab Ahmed

Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University
Spring 2010
Tu, Th 1-2.30, Holden Chapel
Office Hours, Mon 5.30-6.30, Tue 2.30-3.30 (Barker Center 414)

Description

This course aims to provide students with knowledge of a broad range of key concepts,
technical terms, seminal questions, cultural motifs, and prosopography internal to the
Islamic tradition. These constitute a vocabulary related to Quran and its exegesis, Hadith,
law, political thought, philosophy, theology, Sufism, creeds, rituals, persons, spaces,
symbols, that has permeated Islamic discourses, practices, and identities down the
centuries to the modern period, and that is central to an informed understanding and
further study of Islam as religion and as civilization.

Requirements

Students are required to read the assigned readings, and to attend lectures and tutorial
sections. The most salient elements in the readings – the “vocabulary of Islam” of the
course – will be identified and explained in the lectures. At the end of each unit, the
“vocabulary” for that unit will be distributed. In tutorial section, the tutor will review the
“vocabulary” with the students.

There will be one mid-term exam (40% of the overall grade) to be held on the day
indicated in the course Schedule, below, and a final exam (60% of the grade) to be
scheduled by the Registrar.

Students are responsible for obtaining all readings marked with an asterisk*. Copies of
the asterisked books are available at the Coop. All other readings will be made available
on the course website. All assigned books will also be put on reserve in Lamont. In the
syllabus, the numbers in square brackets (e.g., [3]) indicate the suggested order of
reading.

In addition to the required readings, other materials, including audio and video materials,
will be made available on the course website. These discretionary materials are not
indicated on the syllabus.

Screenings will be arranged of the assigned movies, which are marked with two
asterisks**. DVD copies will be put on reserve in Lamont. Students who are unable to
attend the screenings are urged to borrow the DVDs from the library, or to make their
own arrangements for viewing the movies (such as via Netflix).
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Teaching Assistants

Elias Muhanna, emuhanna@fas.harvard.edu

Sukidi Mulyadi, smulyadi@fas.harvard.edu

Schedule

Organizational Meeting
Tuesday, January 26

Unit 1: History
Lectures on:

Thursday, January 28
Readings:
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World
Civilization. Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1974, sections on “Muslim Personal Names” and “The Islamicate Calendars”, at
1:16-23. [2].

Ahmet Karamustafa, “Islam: A Civilizational Project in Progress”, in Omid Safi (editor),

Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism, Oxford: Oneworld, 2003, 98-
110. [1].

Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, London: Longman, 1985,
Ch. 2: “The Birth of the Islamic State”, at 15-49. [4].

Annemarie Schimmel, Islam: An Introduction, Albany: State University of New York

Press, 1992, Ch. 1, 2 and 3: “Arabia Before Islam”, “Muhammad”, and “The Expansion
of Islam,” at 7-28. [3].

Tuesday, February 2
Readings:
Vernon O. Egger, A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization,
Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc, 2004, Ch. 2 and 3: “Arab Imperialism”, and
“The Development of Sectarianism”, at 33-84. [2].*

Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 923), The History of al-Ṭabarī. Volume IX: The Last
Years of the Prophet (translated and annotated by Ismail K. Poonawala), Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1990, “An Account of the Day on which the Messenger of
God Died and His Age”, at 183-206. [1].
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David Waines, An Introduction to Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003

(2nd edition), Ch. 6: “The way of the Imams”, at 155-172. [3].*

Thursday, February 4
Readings:
Vernon O. Egger, A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization,
Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc, 2004, Ch. 4, 6 and 7: “The Center Cannot
Hold: Three Caliphates”, “Filling the Vacuum of Power, 950-1100”, “Barbarians at the
Gates, 1100-1260”, at 85-113, and 139-198.*

Tuesday, February 9
Readings:
Vernon O. Egger, A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization,
Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc, 2004, Ch. 9 and 10: “The Muslim
Commonwealth”, “Mongol Hegemony”, at 229-289. [1].*

Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2002 (2nd edition), Ch. 13, 14, 15, 16: Iran: The Mongol, Timurid and Safavid empires”,
“The Turkish migrations and the Ottoman empire”, “The Arab Middle East”, “Islamic
North Africa and Spain to the nineteenth century”, at 226-336. [2].

Thursday, February 11
Readings:
Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002 (2nd edition), Ch. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21: “Inner Asia from the Mongol conquests to the
nineteenth century”, “The Indian subcontinent: the Delhi sultanates and the Mughal
empire”, “The formation of Islamic societies in southeast Asia”, “Islam in Sudanic,
savannah, and forest West Africa”, “Islam in East Africa and the rise of European
colonial empires”, at 337-442.

Unit 2: Quran and Hadith

Lectures on:

Tuesday, February 16
Readings:
Farid Esack, The Qur’an: A User’s Guide, Banbury: Oneworld, 2005. [2].*

John Renard, Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, Ch.1: “Foundations: Prophetic
Revelation”, at 1-33. [1].
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Thursday, February 18
Readings:
Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1955, “The
Opening”, “Joseph”, “Ya Sin”, “The All-Merciful”, “The Unbelievers”, “Sincere
Religion”, “Daybreak” and “Men”, at 1, 254-266, 450-455, 557-559, 664, 667-669. [1].

Ayesha Chaudhry, “The Problem of Conscience and Hermeneutics: A Few

Contemporary Approaches”, Comparative Islamic Studies 2 (2006) 157-170. [4].

Anthony H. Johns, “Reflections on the Dynamics and Spirituality of Sūrat al-Furqān”, in

Issa J. Boullata (editor), Religious Structures of Literary Meaning in the Qur’ān,
Richmond: Curzon, 2000, 188-227. [3].

“Quran verses related to wine” [in the translations of Arthur J. Arberry, Abdullah Yusuf
Ali, and Marmaduke Pickthall]. Vocabulary of Islam Course Website. ( =Quran 2:219-
220, 4:43, 5:90-91; 16:66-69; 37:45-47; 47:15; 56:18-19; 76:14-21). [2].

Tuesday, February 23
Readings:
Shahab Ahmed. “Hadith (i. General Introduction),” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ed. Ehsan
Yarshater, New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, continued by Bibliotheca Persica
Press, 1982-ongoing, Vol. 9.4:442-447. [1].

Reuven Firestone, Jihād: The Origins of Holy War in Islam, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999. [4].*

James Robson, “The Material of Tradition I”, The Moslem World 41 (1951) 166-180. [3].

James Robson, “The Form of Muslim Tradition”, Transactions of the Glasgow University
Oriental Society 16 (1955-56) 38-50. [2].

Thursday, February 25
Readings:
Abū Dā’ūd (d. 888), Sunan, “Section on clothing”, translated by Arthur Jeffrey, A Reader
on Islam, Mouton, 1962, 124-141. [3].

Jonathan A C. Brown, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World,
Banbury: Oneworld, 2009, Ch. 5 and 6: “The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Islamic
Law and Legal Theory”, “The Function of Prophetic Traditions in Theology”, at 150-
183. [1]

William A. Graham, “Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,” Journal of

Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993) 495-522. [2].
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Sharaf al-Dīn al-Nawawī (d. 1277), “The Forty Traditions of al-Nawawī”, translated by
Arthur Jeffrey, A Reader on Islam, Mouton, 1962, 142-160. [4].

Unit 3: Law and Politics

Lectures on:

Tuesday, March 2
Thursday, March 4
Readings:
Bernard G. Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law, Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1998.*

Tuesday, March 9
Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, c. 1200-1800, New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2004, Ch. 1: “Sharī`a, Akhlāq and Governance”, at 26-80. [2].

Carl Max Kortepeter, “The Islamic-Ottoman Social Structure: The Quest for a Model of
Ottoman History,” in R. Bayley Winder (editor), The Near East Round Table 1967-68,
New York: New York University Press, 1969, 1-40. [3].

Josef van Ess, “Political Ideas in Early Islamic Religious Thought”, British Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies 28 (2001), 151-164. [1].

In-class Mid-term Exam covering Units 1 and 2 (including a map-quiz): Thursday,

March 11

SPRING BREAK

Unit 4: Philosophy, Theology, and Creed

Lectures on:

Tuesday, March 23
Readings:
Massimo Campanini, An Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2004.*

Thursday, March 25
Readings:
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Nader el-Bizri, “God: essence and attributes”, in Tim Winter (editor), The Cambridge
Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008, 121-140. [3].

Fazlur Rahman, Islam, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966, Ch. 5: “Dialectical
Theology and the Development of Dogma”, at 85-99. [1].

David Waines, An Introduction to Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003

(2nd edition), Ch. 4: Theology, faith, justice, and last things”, at 103-132.* [2].

Tuesday, March 30
Readings:
David Burrill, “Creation”, in Tim Winter (editor), The Cambridge Companion to
Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 141-160. [1].

Yahya Michot, “Revelation”, in Tim Winter (editor), The Cambridge Companion to

Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 180-196. [2].

W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds: A Selection, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press, 1994, “al-Nasafī”, al-Ījī”, al-Sanūsī” “`Allāma-i Ḥillī”, at 80-105. [3].

Unit 5: Sufism
Lectures on:

Thursday, April 1
Tuesday, April 6
Readings:
Carl W. Ernst, The Shambala Guide to Sufism, Boston: Shambala Publications, 1997.*

Thursday, April 8
Readings:
Vincent J. Cornell, “Faqīh versus faqīr in Marinid Morocco: Epistemological Dimensions
of a Polemic”, in Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke (editors), Islamic Mysticism
Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999,
207-224. [2].

Gerald Elmore, Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-`Arabī’s Book of the
Fabulous Gryphon, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999, Ch. 6: “The Seal of the Saints”, at 131-162.
[1].

Khwājah Ghulām Farīd (1845-1901), “Mēḍā `ishḳ vī tūṅ [You are my Love]”,
Recordings by `Ābidah Parvīn, and by Paṫhānē Khān. Vocabulary of Islam Course
Website. [3].
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Unit 6: Rituals, Spaces, Symbols

Lectures on:

Tuesday, April 13
Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to
Islam, Albany: State University of New York, 1994.

Thursday, April 15
Johann Christoph Bürgel, The Feather of Simurgh: The ‘Licit Magic’ of the Arts in
Medieval Islam, New York: New York University Press, 1988, Ch. 1: “The Feather of
Simurgh: The Divine and the Arts in Islamic Culture”, Ch. 3: “The ‘Licit Magic’ of
Poetry”, Ch. 4: “Music: Nourishment of the Soul”, at 5-26, 53-118. [2].

Oleg Grabar, Mostly Miniatures: An Introduction to Persian Painting, Ch. 4: “The Major
Themes of Persian Painting”, at 83-121. [3].

John Renard, Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, Ch.1: “Devotion: Ritual and Personal
Prayer”, at 35-72. [1].

Unit 7: Modern
Lectures on:

Tuesday, April 20
David Waines, An Introduction to Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003
(2nd edition), Part 3: “Islam in the Modern World”, at 173-297.*

Satyajit Ray (director), The Chess Players [Shaṭranj kē khilāṙī], Devki Chitra
Productions, 1977.**

Thursday, April 22
Tayeb Saleh, Season of Migration to the North [Mawsim al-hijrah ilā al-shamāl],
London: Heinemann, 1969.*

Tuesday, April 27
Carl W. Ernst, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World,
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.*

Gillo Pontecorvo (director), The Battle of Algiers [La battaglia di Algeri], Casbah Films,
1966.**
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Thursday, April 29
Jackie Reem Salloum (director), Slingshot Hiphop, Fresh Booza Productions, 2009.**