Postgraduate Course: Islam and Social Change in the 20th Century (IMES11049)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | The contemporary Islamic revival has generated much discussion about the compatibility between Islam and modernity. In fact, this debate seems irrelevant in the light of the profound changes Islam - understood here as a set of evolving interpretations and practices, rather than as a stable 'essence' - has undergone as a result of the last century's social transformations. Adopting the lens of social sciences (sociology, anthropology, political sciences), the course addresses the most important of these changes: the exponential rise in religious literacy, the development of the mass media, the partial secularisation of law, the unprecedented growth of state control over religion, the challenges faced by traditional religious authorities, the emergence of Islamic movements, the new role of women in religious life, the redefinitions of orthodoxy, evolving patterns of relations between Sunni and Shia, and Muslims and non-Muslims, attempts at Islamising economy, and the globalization of Islam. This course is jointly taught with undergraduate students. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
16/09/2013 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 27,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Formative Assessment Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
167 )
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| Additional Notes |
|
| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
90 %,
Practical Exam
10 %
|
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
- Critical understanding of the main transformations that have affected Islamic interpretations and practices of Islam over the last century.
- Familiarity with the main trends in the analysis of these transformations among the relevant disciplines (Islamic studies, politics, sociology, and anthropology).
- Ability to evaluate and critique scholarly and other writings on the above topics.
- Ability to situate current events pertaining to Islam in the wider context of the transformations expounded in the course. |
Assessment Information
3000-word essay: 65%
1500-word minor assignment: 25%
500-word class presentation: 10%
|
Special Arrangements
| PG Version |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
1. Introduction: What is 'Islam'?
2. Mass religious literacy, the mass-media, and new audiences
3. (Dis)implementing sharia: Law and fiqh in the modern age
4. State Islam
5. Mobilising the faithful: Islamic activism
6. Debating religious authority
7. Women: the quiet revolution
8. On the Umma's borders: (Re)defining orthodoxy and the relations with the non-Muslims
9. From Islamic economy to market Islam
10. Dreams of a united Umma
|
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
1. Introduction
Ernest Gellner, Muslim society. (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
Clifford Geertz, Islam observed; religious development in Morocco and Indonesia. (New Haven,: Yale University Press, 1968).
Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam : religion and society in the modern Middle East. (London ; New York: Tauris, 1990).
Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. (Washington: Georgetown University 1986).
Samuli Schielke, 'Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam,' ZMO Working Papers 2 (2010).
Baudouin Dupret, Thomas Pierret, Paulo Pinto and Kathryn Spellman-Poots (ed.), Ethnographies of Islam. Ritual Performances and Everyday Practices (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
2. The Advent of mass religious literacy
Richard Antoun, Muslim Preacher in the Modern World. A Jordanian Case Study. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to work: education, politics, and religious transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
Eickelman, Dale, Knowledge and Power in Morocco (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
Robert W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Schooling Islam: the Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007).
3. Modern media and new audiences
Francis Robinson, "Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print," Modern Asian Studies 27 (1993): 229-51.
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, 'Print and Patronage: 'Hadith' and the Madrasas in Modern South Asia,' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 62 (1999), 60-81.
Dyala Hamaza, "From 'Ilm to Sihafa or the Politics of the Public Interest (Maslaha): Muhammad Rashîd Rida and his journal al-Manar (1898-1935)," in: Dyala Hamzah (Ed.), The Making of the Arab Intellectual (1880-1960: Empire, Public Sphere and the Colonial Coordinates of Selfhood (London: Routledge, 2012).
Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, New media in the Muslim world: the emerging public sphere. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003).
Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob. 'The Global Mufti.' In Globalization and the Muslim World: Culture, Religion, and Modernity. Edited by Birgit Schäbler and Leif Stenberg (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004), 153-65.
Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape : Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
Gary R. Bunt, iMuslims: Rewiring the house of Islam. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
4. (Dis)implementing sharia: Law and fiqh in the modern age
Lawrence Rosen, The Justice of Islam : comparative perspectives on Islamic law and society. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Sami Zubaida, Law and power in the Islamic world (London ; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003).
Baudouin Dupret, Barbara Drieskens and Annelies Moors, Narratives of truth in Islamic law. (London ; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008).
Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley Morris Messick and David Stephan Powers, Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and their Fatwas. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).
Nico Kaptein, "The voice of the `Ulamâ : fatwas and religious authority in Indonesia," Archives de sciences sociales des religions 49 (2004): 115-30.
Agrama, Hussein Ali ¿Ethics, authority, tradition: towards an anthropology of the fatwa", American Ethnologist 37 (2010), 2-18.
5. State Islam
Malika Zeghal, "Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of Al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952-94)," International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999), 371-99
Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta. (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
Jerry M. Long, Saddam's War of Words: Politics, Religion, and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004).
Richard Antoun, "Fundamentalism, Bureaucratization and the State's Co-optation of Religion: A Jordanian Case Study," International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006): 369-93.
Patrick Gaffney, "Conforming at a Distance: the Diffusion of Islamic Bureaucracy in Upper Egypt," in Upper Egypt Egypt: Identity and Change. R. Saad and N. Hopkins (ed.) (Cairo: American University of Cairo, 2004), 119-40.
Thomas Pierret, "The State Management of Religion in Syria: the End of 'Indirect Rule'?" in Steven Heydemann, Reinoud Leenders (dir.), Comparing Authoritarianisms: Reconfiguring Power and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran (Stanford University Press ou Indiana University Press).
6. Mobilising the faithful: Islamic activism
Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: the rise of an Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942. (Reading: Ithaca, 1998).
Mazen Hashem, "Contemporary Islamic Activism: The Shades of Praxis", Sociology of Religion 67 (2006), 23-41.
Charles Hirschkind, "What is Political Islam?," Middle East Report (2007).
Jenny White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).
Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam religion, activism, and political change in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).
Quintan Wiktorowicz, Islamic activism: a social movement theory approach. (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004).
Mohammed M. Hafez, Why Muslims rebel: repression and resistance in the Islamic world. (Boulder, Colo.; London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003).
Thomas Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia : violence and pan-Islamism since 1979. (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam. Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).
7. Debating religious authority
Frédéric Volpi, Bryan Turner (ed.), Making Islamic Authority Matter (special issue of Theory, Politics & Society 24 (2007), 1-19.
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
Gudrun Krämer and Sabine Schmidtke (ed.), Speaking for Islam: Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies. (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2006).
Zhegal, Malika. "The 'Recentering' of Religious Knowledge and Discourse: The Case of Al-Azhar in Twentieth Century Egypt." In Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. Robert W Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vit Sisler, "Online fatwas, arbitration tribunals and the construction of Muslim identity in the UK", in Information, Communication & Society, vol. 14, n° 8, 2011, pp. 1136-59.
8. Women: the quiet revolution
Margot Badran, Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences. (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009).
Leila Ahmed, A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).
Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach (ed.), Women, Leadership, and Mosques. Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
Miriam Cooke, "Zaynab al-Ghazali: Saint or Subversive?," Die Welt des Islams 34 (1994): 1-20.
Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).
Zakia Salime, Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
Maimuna Huq, "Reading the Qur'an in Bangladesh: the politics of belief among Islamist women," Modern Asian Studies 42 (2008): 457-88.
9. (Re)defining orthodoxy
Brett Wilson, "The Failure of Nomenclature: The Concept of 'Orthodoxy' in the Study of Islam," Comparative Islamic Studies 3 (2007): 169-94.
Samuli Schielke, "On snacks and saints: when discourses of rationality and order enter the Egyptian mawlid," Archives de sciences sociales des religions (2006).
Katherine Ewing,"The Politics of Sufism: Redifining the Saints of Pakistan,". Journal of Asian Studies 42 (1983), 251-68.
Julian Johansen, Sufism and Islamic Reform in Egypt. The Battle for Islamic Tradition. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
Matthijs van den Bos, Mystic regimes : Sufism and the state in Iran, from the late Qajar era to the Islamic Republic. (Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2002).
Alexander Knysh, "Contextualizing the Salafi - Sufi conflict (from the Northern Caucasus to Hadramawt)," Middle Eastern Studies 43 (2007): 503-30.
Itzchak Weismann, "The Politics of Popular Religion: Sufis, Salafis, and Muslim Brothers in 20th-Century Hamah," International Journal of Middle East Studies 37 (2005): 39-58.
Mark J. Sedgwick, "Saudi Sufis: Compromise in the Hijaz, 1925-40," Die Welt des Islams 37 (1997): 349-68.
Sadia Saeed, "Pakistani Nationalism and the State Marginalisation of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan," Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 7 (2007): 132-52.
A. Nizar Hamzeh and R. Hrair Dekmejian, "A Sufi Response to Political Islamism: Al-Ahbash of Lebanon,¿ International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996): 217-29.
10. On the Umma's borders
Rainer Brunner, Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century: the Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2004).
Brigitte Maréchal and Sami Zemni (ed.), The Dynamics of Sunni-Shia Relationships: Doctrine, Transnationalism, Intellectuals and the Media (London: Hurst, 2012).
Werner Ende, "Sunni Polemical Writings on the Shi'a and the Iranian Revolution," in The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, ed. David Menashri (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 219-32.
Guido Steinberg, "Jihadi-Salafism and the Shi'is," in Global Salafism. Islam's New Religious Movement, ed. Roel Meijer (London: Hurst, 2009), 107-25.
Nicolas Pelham, A new Muslim order : the Shia and the Middle East sectarian crisis. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008).
Khaled Ahmed, Sectarian war : Pakistan's Sunni-Shia violence and its links to the Middle East. (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Max Weiss, In the shadow of sectarianism : law, Shi'ism, and the making of modern Lebanon. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010). (Chapter 5)
Goddard, H., A History of Christian-Muslim Relations (Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
Peter Makari, Conflict and Cooperation: Christian-Muslim Relations in Contemporary Egypt (Syracuse University Press, 2007).
11. From Islamic economy to market Islam
Charles Tripp, Islam and the moral economy: the challenge of capitalism (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Cihan Tugal, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2009).
Clement Henry and Rodney Wilson (ed.), The Politics of Islamic Finance, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), 17-36.
Special issues of ISIM Review on Islamic charity (20/2007).
Quintan Wiktorowicz and Suha Taji Farouki, "Islamic NGOs and Muslim Politics: a Case from Jordan " Third World Quarterly 21 (2000): 685-99.
Janine A. Clark, Islam, Charity and Activism: Middle-Class Networks and Social Welfare in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).
Thomas Pierret and Kjetil Selvik, "Limits of 'Authoritarian Upgrading' in Syria. Welfare Privatization, Islamic Charities and the Rise of the Zayd Movement," International Journal of Middle East Studies 41 (2009): 595-614.
Thomas Pierret, "Merchant background, bourgeois ethics. The Syrian Ulama and economic liberalization," in Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg (ed.) (forthcoming edited volume at Syracuse University Press).
Rudnyckyj, Daromir, "Market Islam in Indonesia," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2009): S183-S201.
12. Dreams of a united Umma
Olivier Roy. Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (London: Hurst, 2004).
Peter Mandaville, Global Political Islam (London: Routledge, 2007).
Engseng Ho. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Gillette, Maris. Between Mecca and Beijing: Modernization and Consumption among Urban Chinese Muslims. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2000
John Bowen. "Beyond Migration: Islam as a Transnational Public Space." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Volume 30, Issue 5 (2004): 879-894.
Miriam Cook and Bruce B. Lawrence (eds.), Muslim Networks from Hajj to Hip Hop. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Leonard, Karen. "Transnational and Cosmopolitan Forms of Islam in the West. Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Review 8 (2007): 176-199.
Thomas Hegghammer, "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters. Islam and the Globalization of Jihad", International Security 35 (2010). |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | IaSC |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Thomas Pierret
Tel: (0131 6)50 4148
Email: Thomas.Pierret@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Linda Grieve
Tel: (0131 6)50 4114
Email: linda.grieve@ed.ac.uk |
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