HIST 308B Modern Islam: Crisis, Defeat, and a Search for Order
Described as harboring "Muslim Rage" by a leading American magazine, Muslims have been portrayed as a reactionary force, out of place in the modern world, by Western culture and media in the post-Cold War era. From the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to the more recent ISIS brutality that appeared as the manifestations of this rage, Western scholars and societies have grappled with the "Islamic" or "Muslim Question". They sought to understand: why are Islam and modernity seemingly incompatible? And how do we conceive of and deal with the Muslims, who make up a quarter of the world's population and represent sizable minorities in European nation-states? Muslims also contended with their own version of the "Islamic Question" after their encounter with European early modernity left them in a deep sense of crisis and decline, soon to be followed by defeat, retreat, occupation, and colonization since the late sixteenth century. They have sought a place within the modern world and engaged in self-reckoning in the face of an (early) modern crisis.
This course examines Islam and Muslims' relationship with modernity and politics while introducing different Western and Islamic perspectives and answers to the "Islamic Question". It will focus on the Muslim response to modernity by first studying nineteenth-century Ottoman reformist ideas and reforms, as well as global connections cemented between Islamic(ist) reformers from the Balkans to India, under the influence of the late Ottoman Caliphate. Subsequently, we will investigate the Muslim experience in the ages of colonization and autocratic nation-states after the fall of the last Muslim empire. Major themes and questions will include varying approaches to the causes of divergence between Islamic experiences and Christian & secular Western ones; Muslim discontent with modernity; Islam and democracy; Islamic reformism; Islamist extremism; Western and Muslim imperialism; and the roles of both Western impact and internal Muslim agency in producing present-day outcomes.
Status Required
ISBN 978-0674238176
THE IDEA OF THE MUSLIM WORLD: A GLOBAL INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, Author: Cemil Aydin, Publisher: Harvard University Press. Edition: Paperback, Price: $ 19.33
Status Required
ISBN 978-0691156248
THE FALL AND RISE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE, Author: Noah Feldman, Publisher: Princeton University Press. Edition: Revised edition (2012), Price: $ 14.95