THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2023/2024

Timetable information in the Course Catalogue may be subject to change.

University Homepage
DRPS Homepage
DRPS Search
DRPS Contact
DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies

Postgraduate Course: Globalized Muslim Politics (IMES11094)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course examines the causes, evolution and diffusion of political Islam in the core regions of the Muslim world and beyond in the modern period. It will examine the key features of this phenomenon, its influence on national and regional politics as well as on international relations. It studies the specificity of political Islam as a religious-based ideology that contributes to shape the growth of Islamic-inspired governance across the Muslim world. The course will focus on the relationship between Islamist movements and the state, and between Islamist movements and society in situations of authoritarian control, hybrid political liberalisation, and democratic rule. The religious interpretations that dominate contemporary debates will be examined in relation to the local, national, regional and global context. Of particular relevance are the issues of the compatibility of political Islam and state power, as well as political Islam and liberal-democracy.
Course description In this course, students will learn to engage critically with various forms of Islamic-inspired governance across the Muslim world and beyond. The course will draw on a wide range of research from across the social sciences and humanities - including sociology, anthropology, history, religious studies, and political science - to evaluate different ways of researching and understanding the multiplicity of engagements between Islamist actors and state and society. It will consider the different regions of the Muslim world, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia, as well as transnational movements and the dynamics of Muslim-minority countries.

The course is structured thematically and will include topics such as: Islamic authority, key ideologues, justification of democracy or authoritarianism, justification of violence, secularism and multiculturalism; reframing traditions; reframing the ummah; transnational networks, piety and militancy; social activism; mass movements and mass mobilization; state power.

The course will be taught through a combination of weekly online lectures and seminar discussions. During the seminars, students will also be expected to participate in exercises and discussions around primary texts relevant to each topic. An additional session focusing on research skills will be offered. Towards the end of the course, students will design a research project on an aspect of globalized Muslim politics through a given disciplinary approach. The research design is not to be implemented; but it is evaluated on whether it could be implemented, for example for a PhD research.
Throughout the course they will also write and receive feedback on a formative essay. In their essay, students are meant to evaluate the state of the art in relation to a salient contemporary Islamic/Muslim topic or place and to identify the main issues at hand and gaps in the literature, so that they can formulate subsequently an research project to address the problem.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Explain and analyse, by drawing on scholarly texts, Muslims¿ social and political experiences of living in a globalized Muslim world.
  2. Analyse the principal modes of governing society in different parts of the Muslim world, and assess and evaluate the main factors influencing them.
  3. Evaluate the different disciplinary approaches to the study of Muslim politics around the world, and how they have changed over time.
  4. Apply and support arguments using appropriate theoretical and empirical literature from across the social sciences and humanities.
  5. Design a research project on an aspect of globalized Muslim politics through a given disciplinary approach
Reading List
Strongly recommended:
Mandaville, Peter. 2013. Islam and Politics. New York: Routledge
Volpi, Frédéric. 2010. Political Islam: A Critical Reader (New York: Routledge, 2010)
Roy, Olivier. 2004. Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press.

Recommended
Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham: Duke University Press.
Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bayat, Asef. 2007. Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Brumberg, Daniel. 2002. ¿Islamists and the politics of consensus¿, Journal of Democracy, 13 (3).
Cammett, Melani and Pauline Jones Luong. 2014. ¿Is There an Islamist Political Advantage?¿, Annual Review of Political Science 17 (1).
Césari, Jocelyne. 2014. The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Devji, Faisal. 2008. The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics. New York: Columbia University Press
Diamond, Larry J., Marc F. Plattner, & Daniel Brumberg (Eds.). 2003. Islam and Democracy in the Middle East. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Eickelman, Dale & James Piscatori. 2004. Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Enayat, Hamid. 1982. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Euben, Roxanne L. 1999. Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Filiu, Jean-Pierre. 2009. ¿The local and global jihad of al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib¿, The Middle East Journal 63 (2).
Fuller, Graham E. 2004. The Future of Political Islam. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gerges, Fawaz A. 2005. The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gleave, Robert. 2007. ¿Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shi¿ism¿, Theory Culture and Society 24 (2).
Gräf, Bettina & Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (Eds.). 2009. Global mufti: the phenomenon of Y¿suf al-Qara¿¿w¿. New York: Columbia University Press.
Haddad, Yvonne (Ed). 2001. Muslims in the West. From Sojourners to Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hefner, Robert W. (Ed.). 2005. Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hegghammer, Thomas. 2010. Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2007. ¿Islam and the Republic: The French Case¿, in Thomas Banchoff (Ed.), Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Khalid, Adeeb. 2014. Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Khatib, Lina. 2014. ¿The Islamic State¿s Strategy¿, Carnegie Paper, June 2014. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/islamic_state_strategy.pdf
Klausen, Jytte. 2015. ¿Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq¿, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 38 (1).
Langohr, Vickie. 2002. ¿Of Islamists and Ballot Boxes: Rethinking the Relationship between Islamism and Electoral Politics¿, International Journal of Middle East Studies 33 (4).
Lubeck, Paul. 2000. ¿The Islamic Revival: Antinomies of Islamic Movements Under Globalization¿, in R. Cohen and S.M. Rai (Eds.), Global Social Movements. New Brunswick: Athlone Press.
Mahmood, Sabah. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mandaville, Peter. 2001. Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma. New York: Routledge.
Menchik, Jeremy. 2016. Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nasr, Vali. 2005. ¿The Rise of "Muslim Democracy¿, Journal of Democracy 16 (2).
Roy, Olivier. 2006. ¿Islam in the West or Western Islam? The disconnect of religion and culture¿, The Hedgehog Review 8 (1-2).
Schwedler, Jillian. 2007. Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Soares, Benjamin and René Otayek (Ed.). 2007. Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Stepan, Alfred. 2012. ¿Tunisia's Transition and the Twin Tolerations¿, Journal of Democracy 23 (1).
Torelli, Stefano M., Fabio Merone, & Francesco Cavatorta. 2012. ¿Salafism in Tunisia: Challenges and Opportunities for Democratization¿, Middle East Policy 19 (4)
Volpi, Frédéric. 2018. ¿Shaping contention as a Salafi movement: The rise and fall of Ansar al-Sharia in post-revolutionary Tunisia¿, in F. Volpi and J.M. Jasper (Eds.), Microfoundations of the Arab Uprisings: Mapping Interactions between Regimes and Protesters. Amsterdam University Press
Volpi, Frédéric & Ewan Stein (2015). ¿Islamism and the state after the Arab uprisings: Between people power and state power¿, Democratization 22 (2).
Volpi, Frédéric. 2010. Political Islam Observed. New York: Oxford University Press USA.
Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. 2002. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wiktorowicz, Quintan. 2005. ¿A genealogy of radical Islam¿, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 28 (2).
Yavuz, M. Hakan. 2009. Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills - Critical analysis and evaluation skills through academic essay writing, online exercises
- Application of knowledge and understanding through online discussions and exercises
- Online communication and presentation skills
- Online group work and peer learning through delivery of feedback to peers
Additional Class Delivery Information Jointly taught with UG - IMES10103
Asynchronous activities online
10 minutes weekly lecture videos & 40 minutes weekly questions and exercises
Synchronous activities online
50 minutes weekly seminar discussion
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Frederic Volpi
Tel: (0131 6)50 4615
Email: Frederic.Volpi@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMrs Anne Budo
Tel: (0131 6)50 4161
Email: a.budo@ed.ac.uk
Navigation
Help & Information
Home
Introduction
Glossary
Search DPTs and Courses
Regulations
Regulations
Degree Programmes
Introduction
Browse DPTs
Courses
Introduction
Humanities and Social Science
Science and Engineering
Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Other Information
Combined Course Timetable
Prospectuses
Important Information