On the Concept of Islamic History

Catalog description

What makes the past "Islamic"? In this course, we will address this question through a philosophical and historical analysis of the very concept of "Islamic history," which tells a specific story about a unified but extraordinarily heterogenous people. We will break down this narrative, recognize various anomalies of the "Islamic past" (from a Western historiographic perspective) and, in the process, come to better understand what it is that brings together the various threads which weave themselves into the tapestry of "Islam." We will begin by reading philosophical texts on the idea of history, but mostly we will analyze specific themes in "Islamic history," e.g., childhood, caliphate, conquests, mysticism, memory, medicine, and more, through primary and secondary source readings, all of which will give us a sense of the distinctiveness of "the Islamic past" in relation to the dominant conception of "history." Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.