DR. ARNOLD LEDER
Political Science 4313

View Image Of: The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque)/Istanbul, Turkey

Web Resources For Islam
Internet Sources On Islam/Fordham University

Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

PURPOSE OF COURSE
The purpose of this course is to acquire some understanding of Islam as a religious tradition, way of life, and attendant perspectives for political thought and behavior, and Islamic responses to modernity, including the emergence of radical Islam.

Note On Group Distribution Requirements For Political Science Majors:
This course may be used to satisfy the Group IV category - Comparative Government - or- the Group I category - Political Theory and Methodology - of the Group Distribution of Courses requirement for Political Science majors.  For a list of undergraduate courses in Political Science by group, see: http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/courses/undergrad-courses.html.

GRADES: Student grades for the course will be based on two or more exams which will consist of essay questions and identification and explanation of important concepts and issues.  No make-up exams will be given.

Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Random House 2005)
Reza Aslan/No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Random House 2005)

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Course Title: Islam

I. The Middle East: Culture & History
1. An overview of Middle Eastern Culture
2. The Pre-Islamic Period/Jahiliyyah
3. The Early Islamic Period
InternetSourcesOnIslam/FordhamUniversity(ComprehensiveSiteWithLinksForManyAspectsOfThe IslamicExperience)
Maps Relating to Islam's Historical Development
MiddleEastMapsUT Library Online/Perry-Castaneda Map Collection/Middle East Maps
Map Of Geographic Distribution Of Religions/MiddleEast

Video: Islam: Empire of Faith

For a critical review of this PBS film, see: Martin Kramer, Islam for Viewers Like You/The Middle East Quarterly/Winter 2002 Vol. IX: No. 1.

Readings: Rahman, Chapters 1, 2; Aslan, Chapter 2;
Arberry, The Holy Koran Interpreted, all, including Arberry's preface.
Khaleel Mohammed/Assessing English Translations of the Qur'an/The Middle East Quarterly/Spring 2005 Vol. XII No. 2.
Neil MacFarquhar/New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse/NYT March 25, 2007

Video: Islam

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Abdellah Hammoudi’s narrative, A Season in Mecca, offers one response. It is as much a subtle, complex meditation as it is an example of the ‘art of reportage’ (for which it won a Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin in 2005). It is a commentary on one Arab intellectual’s modern dilemmas as well as on the haj as he experienced it in 1999 and as he continues to apprehend it in his writing. Perhaps it would be better to say, as he struggles to apprehend it, because this sense of struggle gives the writing much of its deep interest."

Hassan M. Fattah/The Price of Progress: Transforming Islam's Holiest Site (Mecca Journal)/NYT March 08, 2007
Thanassis Cambanis/Celebration Marks End of Ramadan in Lebanon/NYT/October 13, 2007

Readings: Rahman, Chapters 3, 4, 6; Aslan, Chapters 3, 5, 6.
Michael Slackman/A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life: Eygpt's Muslims Seek Fatwas on Issues Great and Small/NYT June 12, 2007
Photo: Consultation in the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo (from Slackman article above)
Lydia Polgreen/In Nigeria, the Quest for a 'Humane Shariah' (photos)/NYT December 1, 2007

IV. The Major Divisions in Islam
1. Sunni & Shi'a Islam
Interactive Map:Sunni & Shia: The Worlds of Islam/pbs.org

Readings: Rahman, Chapter 10; Aslan, Chapters 5 (revisited), 7.
Michael Slackman/For Iran's Shiites, a Celebration of Faith and Waiting/NYT August 30, 2007

V. Islamic Mysticism/Sufism
1. Mysticism: The Insights of Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem
2. Sufism "Follow the path to Allah as a flower leans to the sun." (A Sufi saying)
Sufis/SufiOrders
Whirling Dervishes: video clip @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6wLenLAdNs&search=Dervish
Sufi "Chant", video clip @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUOqFhWGX_w&search=Sufi

Readings: Rahman, Chapters 8, 9; Aslan, Chapter 8.

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VI. Issues in Contemporary Islam: Islamism/Radical Islam; Democracy
1. Islam & Modernity
2. Islam & National Identity
3. Democracy, Religious Coexistence & Secularism
4. Jihad & Radical Islam

Readings: Rahman, Chapter 13 & epilogue; Aslan, Chapters 4, 9, 10.
Mary Habeck/Knowing the Enemy:Jihad and Jihadism/Australia-Israel Review December 2006
Bernard Lewis, "Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East", Foreign Affairs, May-June 2005.
This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library with a valid Texas StateUniversity User Name and password.

Today, a few voices are calling for just this kind of renewal of Islamic political theology. Some, like Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, challenge the authority of today’s puritans, who make categorical judgments based on a literal reading of scattered Koranic verses. In Abou El Fadl’s view, traditional Islamic law can still be applied to present-day situations because it brings a subtle interpretation of the whole text to bear on particular problems in varied circumstances. Others, like the Swiss-born cleric and professor Tariq Ramadan, are public figures whose writings show Western Muslims that their political theology, properly interpreted, offers guidance for living with confidence in their faith and gaining acceptance in what he calls an alien 'abode.' To read their works is to be reminded what a risky venture renewal is. It can invite believers to participate more fully and wisely in the political present, as the Protestant Reformation eventually did; it can also foster dreams of returning to a more primitive faith, through violence if necessary, as happened in the Wars of Religion.

Perhaps for this reason, Abou El Fadl and especially Ramadan have become objects of intense and sometimes harsh scrutiny by Western intellectuals. We prefer speaking with the Islamic liberalizers because they share our language: they accept the intellectual presuppositions of the Great Separation and simply want maximum room given for religious and cultural expression. They do not practice political theology. But the prospects of enduring political change through renewal are probably much greater than through liberalization. By speaking from within the community of the faithful, renovators give believers compelling theological reasons for accepting new ways as authentic reinterpretations of the faith. Figures like Abou El Fadl and Ramadan speak a strange tongue, even when promoting changes we find worthy; their reasons are not our reasons. ...

... We have little reason to expect societies in the grip of a powerful political theology to follow our unusual path, which was opened up by a unique crisis within Christian civilization. This does not mean that those societies necessarily lack the wherewithal to create a decent and workable political order; it does mean that they will have to find the theological resources within their own traditions to make it happen."

Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on National Public Radio (NPR)/May 9, 2006-Includes Backgrounder on Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Christopher Hitchins/The Caged Virgin: Holland's shameful treatment of  Ayaan Hirsi Ali/slate.com/May 8, 2006
An Interview with Ayan-Hirsi-Ali-video clip @ http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/05/10/audio-ayaan-hirsi-ali-at-harvard/
Ayaan Hirsi Ali/Islam's Silent Moderates/NYT December 7, 2007
Barry Gewen/Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other/NYT Week In Review Sunday, April 27, 2008
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are two of the most prominent and outspoken critics of what they and others see as “mainstream Islam,” but their approaches couldn’t be more different.

Rebecca Hillauer/On Fadela Amara & young Muslim women in the working class suburbs of France/signandsight.com/features/288.html
Neil MacFarquhar/To Muslim Girls, Scouts Offer a Chance to Fit In/International Herald Tribune/November 28, 2007

The Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun, Syria’s highest-ranking Islamic teacher, has condemned honor killing and Article 548 in unequivocal terms. Earlier this year, when we met for a rare interview in his spacious office on the 10th floor of Syria’s ministry of religious endowments, he told me, “It happens sometimes that a misogynistic religious scholar will argue that women are the source of all kinds of evil.” In fact, he said, the Koran does not differentiate between women and men in its moral laws, requiring sexual chastity of both, for example. The commonly held view that Article 548 is derived from Islamic law, he said, is false.

With his tightly wound white turban and giant pearl ring, the grand mufti is one of Syria’s most recognizable public figures. He is a charismatic and generally popular sheik, but because he is appointed by the state, many Syrians believe that his views reflect those of the ruling party, and they may find his teachings suspect as a result. In downtown Damascus, one man I interviewed on the street declared that the grand mufti was not a “real Muslim” if he believed in canceling Article 548. “It’s an Islamic law to kill your relative if she errs,” said the man, who gave his name as Ahmed and said that he learned of Zahra’s story on Syrian television. “If the sheik tries to fight this, the people will rise up and slit his throat.”

There are religious figures who defend the status quo. At a conference on honor killing held this year at Damascus University, Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Bouti, one of Syria’s most esteemed clerics, maintained that the laws should not be changed, defending them on the principle in Shariah law that people who kill in defense of their property should be treated with lenience (he is believed to have moderated his stance since). When, at an earlier conference, the grand mufti announced that he didn’t believe protecting a woman’s virginity was the most important component of honor, many attendees were upset. In response, a group of about a dozen women, all dressed in the long black abayas that in Syria are usually worn by only very conservative women, walked out of the room".
Katherine Zoepf/Love on Girls' Side of the Saudi Divide (with photos)/NYT, May 13, 2008

Video: Women & Islam

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Academic Honesty Statement
Learning and teaching take place best in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and openness. All members of the academic community are responsible for supporting freedom and openness through rigorous personal standards of honesty and fairness. Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty undermine the very purpose of the university and diminish the value of an education.
Academic Offenses
Students who have committed academic dishonesty, which includes cheating on an examination or other academic work to be submitted, plagiarism, collusion, or abuse of resource materials, are subject to disciplinary action.
a. Academic work means the preparation of an essay, thesis, report, problem assignments, or other projects which are to be submitted for purposes of grade determination.
b. Cheating means:
1. Copying from another student?s test paper, laboratory report, other report or computer files, data listing, and/or programs.
2. Using materials during a test unauthorized by person giving test.
3. Collaborating, without authorization, with another person during an examination or in preparing academic work.
4. Knowingly, and without authorization, using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, soliciting, copying, or possessing, in whole or part, the content of an unaministered test.
5. Substituting for another student?or permitting another person to substitute for oneself in taking an exam or preparing academic work.
6. Bribing another person to obtain an unadministered test or information about an unadministered test.
c. Plagiarism means the appropriation of another's work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one's own written work offered for credit. (Underline Added)
d. Collusion means the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit.
e. Abuse of resource materials means the mutilation, destruction, concealment, theft or alteration of materials provided to assist students in the mastery of course materials.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
Students who have committeed academic dishonesty may be subject to:
a. Academic penalty including one or more of the following when not inconsistent:
1. A requirement to perform additional academic work not required of other students in the course;
2. Required to withdraw from the course with a grade of F. (Underline Added)
3. A reduction to any level grade in the course, or on the exam or other academic work affected by the academic dishonesty.
b. Disciplinary penalty including any penalty which may be imposed in a student disciplinary hearing pursuant to this Code of Conduct.

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