Throughout the West, and for centuries, Islam is made to appear a monolith, a cultural and civilizational threat to Christian heritage and values. But even a cursory glance at historical and contemporary materials reveals a rich and diverse cultural landscape, developed over centuries and expressed in the interconnected fields of Islamic sciences, law, ethics, and aesthetic practice—all of which prompts an urgent reevaluation of the historical impact and contemporary relevance of Muslim thought and practice. How did Islam develop—and in relation to what other phenomena? Who was Muhammad as a historical figure, and what was the import of him as a prophet in the early Muslim community? What is Islamic historiography, and how did early Muslim scholars preserve oral and textual materials? What political tensions faced the nascent Muslim world, and what questions and parameters shaped early theological discussions? Is the Qur’an a book of law? How rigid is Shar?‘a as a legal system? What were the major contributions to politics, law, the sciences, and culture during the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates? And what does a contemporary approach to Islamic history look like—and what does it yield?
In this course, we will interrogate the early history and development of Islam, starting with the life of Muhammad and moving through the first four “rightly guided” Caliphs and the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. We will examine Islamic legal discourse and analyze theoretical approaches to Islamic history, from its inception to contemporary Islamic studies. With a focus on the religious, social, political, economic, and cultural conditions between the years 632 and 1258 CE, we will attempt to illuminate a wide variety of sources of knowledge by looking into early Islamic historiography, the codification of the Qur’an, the role of the Sunna, and the importance of Shar?‘a in Islamic thought and practice, by way of texts, sources, and schools of thought that span both time and geographical regions. What were the major developments, events, and figures that shaped early Islamic history, and how can a study of them better illuminate our contemporary understanding? Readings, both primary and secondary, will include classical and contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, such as Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Alexander Knysh, Wael Hallaq, Ahmed Shahab, Jonathan Brown, Lena Salaymeh, Zahra Ayubi, Amira K. Bennison, and others.
