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Religion 340: Islam

by Dr. Anna Bigelow, North Carolina State University

Objectives
By the completion of this class student will be able to:
• Identify the major elements of the Islamic tradition and understand the cultural contexts of the religion.
• Research and evaluate how Islam appears in the modern media and how media representations of Islam impact society.
• Read and critically evaluate often challenging primary texts from the Muslim tradition.

Prerequisite
None

Texts
• Ernst, Carl. Following Muhammad.
• Johnson-Davies, Denys. Forty Hadith
• Murata, Sachiko and William Chittick. The Vision of Islam
• Sells, Michael. Approaching the Qur'an. Ashland, Oregon: White Cloud Press, 1999. $21.95 ($17.56 or less from Amazon)
• Saleh, Tayib. The Wedding of Zein.

All of these materials should be available at the NCSU Bookstore. If something is not there, tell the Bookstore that you need to order a copy. Also, it is worth checking amazon.com, labyrinth books, allibris.com, or any number of other on-line booksources to see if you can acquire less expensive and/or used copies. All the reading assignments are from one of these texts or are on electronic reserve. (Reserve texts can be found at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/reserves/ (search under REL340 or under instructor name)

Course Website
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/~bigelow/rel340/

Course Schedule
The reading assignments listed for a particular date and lesson must be read prior to that class, at least once.
January 11: Introduction

January 16: Islam: Stereotypes and Realities
Reading: Ernst, Following Muhammad. Preface and Chapter 1 (pp. xiii – 36)

January 18: Studying Islam
Reading: Following Muhammad. Chapter 2 (pp. 38-69)

January 23: Introducing islam, iman, ihsan
Reading: Vision of Islam. Preface and Introduction (ix-xxxix)

January 25: Introducing islam
Reading: Vision of Islam. Chapters 1 & 2 (pp. 1-34)

January 30: Introducing the Sources of
Reading: Following Muhammad, Chapter 3 (pp. 72-105)

February 1: Introducing the Qur’an
Reading: Approaching the Qur’an, Intro (pp. 1-31) and Suras 1 (pp. 42-43) and 96 (pp. 96-99)

February 6: Continuing the Qur’an
Reading: Approaching the Qur’an, Suras 53, 81, 82, 87, 92, 93, 94, 97-114

February 8: Hearing the Qur’an
Reading: Approaching the Qur’an, pp. 145-157, 170-179
Listen to CD, especially adhan (tracks 1 & 32), Sura 1 (2, 23, 33), Sura 97 (5, 10, 13,
18, 26, 29), and Sura 101 (7, 12, 15, 20, 21, 28, 31)
Memorize a Sura

February 13: Introducing the Sunnah
Reading: An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadith, pp. 7-11, 18-24, and Hadiths 1-4, 6-18, 23, 24, 26, 28-32,
and 37-41

February 15: Introducing iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Part II, pp. 35-44, Chapter 3, pp. 45-83

February 20: Continuing iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 3 pp. 84-131

February 22: Continuing iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 4, pp. 132-163

February 28: Continuing iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 4, pp. 164-192

March 1: Completing iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 5, pp. 193-235

March 5-9: SPRING BREAK NO CLASS

March 13: Explaining iman
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 6, pp. 236-264

March 15: Ethics in Islam
Reading: Following Muhammad, Chapter 4, pp. 107-138

March 20: Life in the World
Reading: Following Muhammad, Chapter 4, pp. 139-162

March 22: Introducing ihsan
Reading: Vision of Islam, Part III, 65-66, Chapter 7, pp. 267-294

March 27: Continuing ihsan
Reading: Vision of Islam, Chapter 8, pp. 295-319

March 29: Spirituality in Islam
Reading: Following Muhammad, Chapter 163-198

April 3: Spirituality in Islam: Sufis, Saints, and Mystics
Reading: Selections from Rumi, Nizamuddin Awliya, Abu Hamid al Ghazali

April 5: Islam in Practice: Inner and Outer jihad
Reading:

April 10: Reading Islam
Reading: The Wedding of Zein, pp. 31-120

April 12: Reading Islam
Reading: The Wedding of Zein, pp. 31-120

April 17: Clash of Civilizations?
Reading: Huntington
Mottahedeh

April 19: Islam in the Media
Reading: Reel Bad Arabs

April 24: Islam in the Media
Presentation of Media Projects

April 26: Wrap-up and Review

May 1 FINAL EXAM, 8-11 am

Course Requirements
Course requirements include weekly response papers (less than a page each), a midterm exam, a media project, and a final exam.

Response Papers
The day before six classes, each student is required to write a brief response paper. Although I will occasionally require you to address particular topics, most often the paper will reflect your insights into the recent readings and website visits. These will be graded. Evaluation is based on the paper’s reflecting your having done the reading and critically engaged the materials. Grammar and style will also be evaluated.

In the response you may choose to summarize and present an argument in the readings that you found interesting, useful, problematic, or confusing. You may critique the structure, style, or content of the reading. You may relate the new material to previous readings and class meetings. When the reading includes multiple articles you may raise issues comparing the articles or you may focus on a single reading as you see fit. Of course you are always responsible for reading all the assignments.

Finally, each response MUST include at least one question for general discussion in class. These questions will become the basis for our classroom interactions. You need not know the answer to the questions you ask, the point is to open up interesting issues that will clarify the arguments of the authors and determine their relevance for the class.

The paper should be no less than ½ a page and no more than one page, single-spaced. Please submit by 5 pm via Wolfware.

Response Paper Due Dates: January 25, February 13, February 27, March 20, April 4, April 19

Media Journal Project
This is a journal in which you collect items from the popular media concerning religion in the world today. Thus, over the fifteen weeks of the course you will collect ten items from various media. You must deal at least once with each of the media listed below, but no more than twice (i.e. two newspaper articles, or two songs). For the remaining entries, use your own discretion. Repeat one of the listed media or be creative! Push the edges of your imagination and look for religious expressions in unexpected places. The types of media include, but are not limited to:

• newspapers (there is a list of news websites on the course webpage)
• television programs or news broadcasts
• films
• Websites
• Tract literature or other publications produced by a religious group (e.g., The Watchtower, The Final Call)
• Music
• Advertisements

Each journal entry should be no more than one page and should entail three parts:
1) the full citation (or the item itself) with date published or produced, the web address, etc.,
2) your summary of the item, and
3) your critical evaluation. This third element of the assignment requires you to figure out the importance and intention of the item: who is producing it, why, and for whom? What is the image of religion or a particular religion that emerges from reading or viewing the item? What is your personal opinion and reaction to the piece?

Two journals will be turned in to me mid-semester, not for a grade, merely to assess your progress and keep you from falling behind.

At the end of the term you will turn in the entire journal along with a 5-6 page, double-spaced evaluation and reflection on the status of religion in popular media. The evaluation should address the questions raised in the critical analysis as well as those listed below, and any others that you find are important:
Do you notice differences between the various media you have engaged? Do you find that you react positively or negatively to one type of presentation or another? How do insiders and outsiders represent religion? How has this project changed or confirmed your impression of the way religion appears in the media?

If you'd like to share your syllabus, please send it to us as an MS Word attachement at studyofislam@gmail.com.

	Bruce Lawrence, The Qur'an: Books That changed the World, Grove Press, 2008.
	Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry, Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006.
	Ebrahim Moosa, Ghazali and Poetics of Imagination, Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005.