External summary

Perhaps more than ever before advanced acquaintance and engagement with Islam and the Middle East is not only useful but of necessity. This engagement needs to be of a qualitatively different nature than it has been to date. There is a need to understand basic facts but there is also a need to go beyond these alone to consider issues of history, politics and culture and utilise their interrelated perspectives to challenge the conventional and offer new formulations. 

The Edinburgh programme is enhanced by the participation of staff drawn from the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World and the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arabic World. Staff are therefore drawn from a uniquely wide variety of the field’s subdisciplines and bring their own unique perspectives to issues relating to Islam and the Middle East generally as well as their respective fields of inquiry within the broader field.

The programme aims both to assist students in identifying the conventional wisdoms prevalent in the field of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and to develop their abilities to challenge these in their own focused in-class work and research undertakings.

Educational aims of programme

The programme aims to provide an advanced, inter-disciplinary understanding of aspects of the history, modern politics and culture of the Islamic Middle East at the postgraduate level while catering to the specific interests of candidates in the medieval or modern periods. It is also suitable for those wishing to acquire grounding in the methods and skills necessary for further research in the field. The Programme is taken full-time over twelve months, although part-time study is also possible. The programme does not require competence in any of the primary languages of the Middle East.

Programme outcomes: Knowledge and understanding

Graduates of this programme will:

• an awareness of and interest in all aspects of Islamic and Middle Eastern cultures, and an appreciation of the richness and diversity of these cultures;
• a knowledge and understanding of the practices, intellectual achievement and perspectives of these cultures from early times to the present day, and how these have continued to relate to the rest of the world;
• an academically informed, independent and critical knowledge of the Middle East and its relations with ‘the West’.

Programme outcomes: Graduate attributes - Skills and abilities in research and enquiry

Graduates of this programme will be able to:

• search for, evaluate and use information relevant to their field of study using library resources including databases
• identify, conceptualize and define new and abstract problems and issues
• plan and execute a significant project of research, investigation or development
• clearly communicate their research plans and the rationale underpinning them unambiguously to specialist and non specialist audiences

Programme outcomes: Graduate attributes - Skills and abilities in personal and intellectual autonomy

Graduates of this programme will be able to:

• exercise substantial autonomy and initiative in activities, including decision making on the basis of independent thought.
• be open to new ideas, methods and ways of thinking
• be intellectually curious with that curiosity leading to professional, personal and academic goals and they will have ability to work towards these goals
• be able to develop, maintain and sustain intellectual rigour and application

Programme outcomes: Graduate attributes - Skills and abilities in communication

Graduates of this programme will be able to:

• communicate to a range of audiences with different levels of knowledge
• communicate with peers, more senior colleagues and specialists
• communicate orally, written, or visually demonstrating clarity and coherence
• engage in debate demonstrating skills of active listening, critical reading and the ability to advance an argument and to develop that argument in the light of new evidence
• seek and to respond to feedback

Programme outcomes: Graduate attributes - Skills and abilities in personal effectiveness

Graduates of this programme will be able to:

• be able to plan, execute and critically evaluate a significant project of research investigation or development
• be able to work collaboratively while recognizing the diversity of the group, the complexity of the specific context and the complexity of the process of collaboration itself
• transfer learning, skills and abilities from one context to another

Programme outcomes: Technical/practical skills

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Programme structure and features

The MSc in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies consists of 180 credits allocated as follows:

In order to progress to the Masters dissertation candidates must:

• attain at least 80 credits with a mark of at least 50% in each of the courses which make up these credits; and
• attain an average of at least 50% for the 120 credits of study examined at the point of decision for progression; and
• satisfy any other specific requirements for the Masters degree programme, that are clearly stated in respective programme handbooks.

When all the marks for the taught components of the programme (120 credits) are available, if the student has achieved PASS marks (40%) in at least 80 credits and has an overall average of 40% or more over the full 120 credits, then they will be awarded credits on aggregate for the failed courses.

The degree is available in full-time and part-time modes and dependant on required credits, students are able to exit the programme at different stages with a postgraduate certificate, a postgraduate diploma, a masters degree or a masters degree with distinction.

Please see the regulations below for clarification on the requirements for different awards:

In order to be awarded a Masters degree students must:

• have satisfied any requirements for progression, as laid out in taught assessment regulation 53 and
• attain an additional 60 credits, by achieving a mark of at least 50% for the dissertation or project component and
• satisfy any other specific requirements for the Masters degree programme, that are clearly stated in respective programme handbooks

Taught postgraduate degrees may be awarded with distinction. To achieve a distinction, a student must be awarded at least 70% on the University’s Postgraduate Common Marking Scheme for the dissertation, if the programme has a dissertation element, and must pass all other courses with an average of at least 70%. Borderlines, for both the dissertation and course average elements, are considered for distinctions. Borderline marks are defined as marks from two percentage points below boundary up to the boundary itself, e.g. 68.00% to 69.99% for the dissertation and for the average of other courses.

Where only one of the dissertation mark or the coursework average is at least 70% but the other is borderline, the MSc may still be awarded with distinction. The decision whether or not to award a distinction in such cases is at the discretion of the Board of Examiners. Factors which will be taken into account in such cases will be (a) the student's credit-weighted average across the degree as a whole; (b) any special circumstances, such as illness or other adverse personal circumstances, which have been brought to the attention of the Board of Examiners.

In order to be awarded a diploma students must:

• pass at least 80 credits at SCQF level 11 and
• attain an average of at least 40% for the 120 credits of study examined for the diploma and
• satisfy any other specific requirements for the named diploma that are clearly stated in respective programme handbooks.

In order to be awarded a certificate students must:

• pass at least 40 credits at SCQF level 11 and
• attain an average of at least 40% for the 60 credits of study examined for the certificate and
• satisfy any other specific requirements for the named certificate that are clearly stated in respective programme handbooks.

Corresponding to the University’s Strategic Plan this programme aims to:

• stimulate in our students a lifelong thirst for knowledge and learning;
• enable our taught postgraduate students to engage with cutting-edge research and the processes of discovery, knowledge generation, and knowledge exchange;
• pioneer new and emerging areas of research across the boundaries of traditional disciplines;
• develop each student’s capacity to learn by enquiry, through the in-depth study they undertake;
• foster in our students a real sense of belonging to a community of learners;
• promote and recognise the value of international mobility, cross-cultural understanding and multilingualism for all our students;
• make a positive intellectual, educational, economic and cultural contribution to society;
• foster a culture which permits freedom of thought and expression within a framework of mutual respect.

Teaching and learning methods and strategies

Teaching and Learning strategies employed at the University of Edinburgh consist of a variety of different methods appropriate to the programme aims. The graduate attributes listed above are met through a teaching and learning framework (detailed below) which is appropriate to the level and content of the course.

These include lectures, tutorials and seminars. They may also include small group problem based learning activities and peer group learning. One to one and group meetings with the programme director, supervisors and individual members of staff are also key dimensions of the learning experience.

Independent learning will be assessed principally by a 15 000 word research dissertation (worth 60 credits). This must have an Arab/Middle Eastern/Islamic focus. Student development towards this will be supported by two 20 credit research units, Research Skills and Methods (first semester) and Research Methods and Problems in IMES (second semester). The former will focus on general research skills while the latter asks for a draft outline and a summary of relevant literature/ annotated bibliography of 4000 words that relates to a chosen topic and incorporates an investigation of viable methodologies.

 Alongside the university’s central library and computing facilities, the School has a number of specialist libraries within its subject areas such as the School of Scottish Archives, the European languages library, and the Language and Humanities Centre which provides language laboratories.  IMES itself has a dedicated departmental library. The Graduate School has its own computer lab at 19 George Square for the exclusive use of its postgraduate students.

Assessment methods and strategies

Courses can be assessed by a diverse range of methods and often takes the form of formative work which provides the student with on-going feedback as well as summative assessment which is submitted for credit. 

The assessment strategy for this degree relies on a series of methods to both encourage development in and to evaluate student performance across a range of skill sets. These may include oral presentations and class participation, short and longer-length essays, examinations and the final research dissertation project. A formal statement of the assessment pattern is available for each course. Student ability to formulate a research question and to undertake the research project is given added encouragement via courses in research approaches and methodologies that include group-based learning activities. Both oral and written feedback are provided.

Career opportunities

Your programme in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies develops your understanding of the history, politics and culture of the Middle East as well as giving you important transferable skills, such as carrying out academic research, writing commentaries and essays, improving your analytical thought, using electronic resources and giving oral presentations.  You may have also acquired Arabic, Persian or Turkish language skills if you followed the relevant courses.

This combination of knowledge and skills would prepare you for directly-related work such as charity work in the UK with muslim refugees, development work either UK-based or in relevant countries, government or social research work, Civil Service work particularly in departments such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or Business, Innovation and Skills, museum work with Islamic and Middle Eastern collections, journalism, management consultancy or Islamic finance.

You may also wish to consider other graduate level employment not directly related to Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, as approximately half of the graduate/ postgraduate jobs advertised in the UK seek applications from any academic discipline.  Recent graduates from your course have moved into housing management, art gallery work, administrative work in the Civil Service, retail management, recruitment consultancy and market research.

Alternatively, you could use your qualification to move on to further academic study by taking a PhD in an aspect of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies or a related topic.  Graduates from recent years have moved on to PhDs in Early Islamic History, Middle Eastern Studies, Politics and Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, and on to a PhD in Jewish Studies at Oxford.  Other graduates have moved on to in-depth language studies in Arabic in the Middle East.

As the options are quite broad it is important for you to work out your own specific skills, your career interests and motivators, and then work out how they fit into the job market so that you can demonstrate your interest and suitability to employers.  For further information and resources to help you with this consult the postgraduate section of the Careers Service website at www.ed.ac.uk/careers/postgrad

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