General information

• Study points: 4.00
• Language: English
• Category: lecture
• Duration: 26.0 hours 
• Periodicity: Taught this academic year in the second semester
• POC: Facultaire onderwijscel Godgeleerdheid

Taught by

El Kaisy-Friemuth Geb. El Maha

Aims

• to discover an acceptable theoretical and methodological framework for studying Islam in the contemporary world;
  
• to examine the ways in which Muslims have attempted to articulate new interpretations of their scriptural traditions in the modern context;
  
• to consider the change of the Islamic tradition within the last two centuries against the background of social and political developments within the Muslim and non-Muslim world in that period.

Content

This course aims to understand and examine the intellectual Islamic thought in modern and contemporary period. We are here mainly interested in introducing the most recent Islamic studies which aim to produce modification in Islam in order to meet the global change in the field of religion. We will first give a brief explanation of the historical development of Islamic thought from the colonialist to the contemporary period. After setting the main background for understanding modern Muslim thought we will move to investigate the development of Qur’nic and Hadith studies among some of the modern and post-modern Muslim thinkers. We will also examine the origin and development of Islamic law and discuss the question of legitimating the application of Islamic law in some of the Muslim countries. 

Course Material

• The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an, ed. J. MacAuliffe, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  
• J. burton, An Introduction to Hadith, Edinburgh university Press, 1994.
  
• W. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  
• Rippin, Andrew,  Muslims. Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, vol. 2: The Contemporary Period, London: Routledge, 2001
  
• Taji-Farouki, Suha, Modern Muslim Intellectuals and The Qur’an, London: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  
• Taji-Farouki, Suha and Nafi, M. Basheer, Islamic Thought in the Twenty Century, London and New York: Tauris, 2004.
  
• Edward Said, Orientalism, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

Evaluation description

Examination type:
    oral with written preparation
Evaluation type:
    Closed book