Professor em. Dr. Sara Sviri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Mystical Teachings, Esoteric Wisdom and the Philosophy of Illumination in Medieval Islam

The course will be based on texts (mostly in Arabic) deriving primarily from the vast literature compiled by Muslim mystics, conventionally known as Sufis; from Shiʿi esoteric literature; and from the ‘philosophy of illumination’ (ḥikmat al-ishrāq). In Medieval Islam, there existed several mystical trends, Sufi and non-Sufi, but eventually Islamic mysticism has become known as Sufism (taṣawwuf). Sufi teachings will be the main focus of the course. We shall attempt to outline the development and history of the various schools, centers and brotherhoods of mystical Islam; to familiarize ourselves with the psychological and ethical teachings of the mystics and their roots in the Islamic tradition (namely, Qurʾān and Ḥadīth); to examine the means whereby mystical knowledge is acquired – ḥikma, maʿrifa, ilhām, ishrāq, kashf – vis-à-vis more conventional means referred to as taʿlīm; to explore the literary contribution of well-known authors and distinguished figures; to analyze the main themes of their mystical teachings; to study the special terminology by which Sufis articulated their teachings; to trace echoes of pre-Islamic traditions in early Sufi works; to observe the impact of Sufism on medieval mystical groups and individuals in Christianity and Judaism, as, for example, on Ramon Lull in Spain and on Jewish Pietists in medieval Andalus and Egypt. Among the topics explored will be the following: what does ‘Sufism’ mean to the Sufis themselves; the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’ and the ‘Divine Man’ in Sufism and Shi’ism; the distinction between ‘mysticism’ (taṣawwuf) and ‘asceticism’ (zuhd); the ‘heart’ (qalb) as the organ of mystical perception and its arch-enemy the ‘psyche’ (nafs); the map of spiritual transformation (maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl); esoteric Qurʾān commentaries; mystical philosophy and its neo-platonic roots; the Sufi Brotherhoods (ṭarīqa, pl. ṭuruq).

Introductory Literature:

• Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʻism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Trans. David Streight. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1994.
• Böwering, Gerhard, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’ānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī (D. 283/896). Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1979.
• Karamustafa, Ahmet T., Sufism: The Formative Period. Edinburgh, Edinburgh university press, 2007.
• Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
• Sviri, Sara, “Sufism: Reconsidering Terms, Definitions and Processes in the Formative Period of Islamic Mysticism” in Les Maîtres Soufis et leur Disciples, eds. G. Gobillot and J-J. Thibon, IFPO, Beirut 2012, 17-34.

Dr. Krisztina Szilágyi, University of Cambridge

The polemical world of medieval Islam

Religion was a common topic of conversation in the medieval Middle East, in both spontaneous and organized form. Scholars of different backgrounds visited each other and corresponded to discuss, among other subjects, religion. Within the walls of palaces, Muslim notables, emirs, viziers, even caliphs occasionally entertained and educated themselves with sessions of religious debates. To such events they invited not only Muslims of various stripes, but Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and others as well. These encounters left manifold traces in the literary record: numerous treatises of theologians attacking other religions and defending their own survive, as do correspondences on religious topics and accounts of religious disputations. Few of these texts were written from the position of ignorance; some in fact evince knowledge of astonishing detail and accuracy about other religions. Muslim authors cite the Bible and discuss questions of Christology, while Christians and Jews quote the Qur’ān and reveal familiarity with Islamic law and history. In this course, we will study the phenomenon of debating religion in the medieval Middle East through the Arabic writings of Muslims, Jews and Christians. We will discuss the social and intellectual context of the debates, and the technique and education of the disputants. We will examine topics recurrent in medieval texts, such as attitudes to the scriptures of others, debates about the definition of true religion, about foundational narratives, doctrines and practices. We will conclude with a glance at the changes modernity and and westernization, and more recently globalization and online communication wrought on debating religion.

Introductory Literature:

• Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land (London, 1992).
• William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (London, 1997).
• Shlomo Dov Goitein and Jacob Lassner, A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume (Berkeley CA, 1999).
• Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton NJ, 2008).

Primary texts

• Michael Cook, “Ibn Sa‘dī on Truth-Blindness,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33 (2007), pp. 169-78. In Arabic: al-Ḥumaydī, Jadhwat al-muqtabis, ed. Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Cairo, 1952), pp. 101-102.
• David Thomas, “Two Muslim-Christian Debates from the Early Shī‘ite Tradition,” Journal of Semitic Studies 33 (1988), pp. 53-80. In Arabic: Ibn Bābawayh, Kitāb al-tawḥīd, ed. Hāshim al-Ḥusaynī l-Ṭihrānī (Tehran, 1387/1967), pp. 270-75, 417-27 (chs. 37 and 65).
• Krisztina Szilágyi, “Chapter Three: The Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias,” in S. Noble and A. Treiger (eds.), The Orthodox Church in the Arab World (700-1700): An Anthology of Sources (DeKalb, Ill., 2014), pp. 90-111, 300-308. In Arabic: Le Dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade avec ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Hāšimī à Jérusalem vers 820, ed. Giacinto Būlus Marcuzzo (Rome 1986), pp. 264-95, 299-369, 503-33.

Prof. Dr. Jon McGinnis, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Natural Philosophy in Medieval Islam: Its Historical, Scientific and Philosophical Context

The course “Natural Philosophy in Medieval Islam: Its Historical, Scientific and Philosophical Context” explores the world through the eyes of medieval Muslim intellectuals. It considers what these thinkers had to say about such question as: what makes up our world; how big is the world; how old is the world; what sort of changes do the things that make up the world undergo and even are there angels and what role, if any, do they play in the world. While all these questions (even the ones about angels) belong to the science of physics, or what is called natural philosophy, they also lead to questions about God’s relation to creation. Moreover, the various answers to these questions informed many of these Muslims understanding of the Quran with its many claims about the world and God's relation to it. Consequently, understanding how these thinkers understood the world helps one better appreciate not only the classical period of Islamic philosophy and science, but also a formative period of Islamic theology. Thus, whether you have interests in Islamic history, theology, philosophy or science, there is something in this course for everyone.

Introductory Literature:

• P. Adamson, “Freedom and Determinism,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. R. Pasnau, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), vol. 1, 399-413.
• P. Adamson, “From the Necessary Existent to God,” Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 170-89.
• C. Belo, Chance and determinism in Avicenna and Averroës (Leiden: Brill, 2007)
• Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, translated by M.E. Marmura (Provo: 1997), especially the opening sections on the eternity of the world.

Prof. Dr. Hinrich Biesterfeldt, Universität Bochum

Political Theory in Classical Islam between Plato & Aristotle and al-Māwardī (and beyond)

It is well known that political thought in Islam is a synthesis of ancient Greek theory, Iranian ideas on statecraft and specific Islamic concepts of the Caliphate and the ideal government. The texts that we shall read and discuss will concern the classics such as al-Fārābī, Averroes, and al-Māwardī, but will go beyond these in three respects: chronologically (authors from the Mamluk and the Ottoman period), concerning literary genre (including mirrors for princes, poems in praise of a ruler, historiography, satire, etc.), and concerning denominational boundaries, i.e. including Jewish and Christian sources.

Introductory Literature:

Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam. An introductory outline, Cambridge U P 21968; Patricia Crone, God’s Rule. Government and Islam, New York 2003.

Professor em. Dr. Sara Sviri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Mystical Teachings and Thought in Medieval Islam

The course will be based on texts (mostly in Arabic) deriving primarily from the vast literature compiled by Muslim mystics, conventionally known as Sufis; from Shiʿi esoteric literature; and from the ‘philosophy of illumination’ (ḥikmat al-ishrāq). In Medieval Islam, there existed several mystical trends, Sufi and non-Sufi, but eventually Islamic mysticism has become known as Sufism (taṣawwuf). Sufi teachings will be the main focus of the course. We shall attempt to outline the development and history of the various schools, centers and brotherhoods of mystical Islam; to familiarize ourselves with the psychological and ethical teachings of the mystics and their roots in the Islamic tradition (namely, Qurʾān and Ḥadīth); to examine the means whereby mystical knowledge is acquired – ḥikma, maʿrifa, ilhām, ishrāq, kashf – vis-à-vis more conventional means referred to as taʿlīm; to explore the literary contribution of well-known authors and distinguished figures; to analyze the main themes of their mystical teachings; to study the special terminology by which Sufis articulated their teachings; to trace echoes of pre-Islamic traditions in early Sufi works; to observe the impact of Sufism on medieval mystical groups and individuals in Christianity and Judaism, as, for example, on Ramon Lull in Spain and on Jewish Pietists in medieval Andalus and Egypt.

Among the topics explored will be the following: what does ‘Sufism’ mean to the Sufis themselves; the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’ and the ‘Divine Man’ in Sufism and Shi’ism; the distinction between ‘mysticism’ (taṣawwuf) and ‘asceticism’ (zuhd); the ‘heart’ (qalb) as the organ of mystical perception and its arch-enemy the ‘psyche’ (nafs); the map of spiritual transformation (maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl); esoteric Qurʾān commentaries; mystical philosophy and its neo-platonic roots; the Sufi Brotherhoods (ṭarīqa, pl. ṭuruq).

Introductory Literature:

• Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʻism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Trans. David Streight. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1994.
• Böwering, Gerhard, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’ānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī (D. 283/896). Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1979.
• Karamustafa, Ahmet T., Sufism: The Formative Period. Edinburgh, Edinburgh university press, 2007.
• Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
• Sviri, Sara, “Sufism: Reconsidering Terms, Definitions and Processes in the Formative Period of Islamic Mysticism” in Les Maîtres Soufis et leur Disciples, eds. G. Gobillot and J-J. Thibon, IFPO, Beirut 2012, 17-34.

Dr. Aron Zysow, independent scholar

Introduction to Islamic Legal Theory

This course introduces the most important terms and concepts of classical Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) through the reading of several short works in their entirety. Further readings will treat a number of subjects in greater depth. Contemporary academic writings will be assigned to provide necessary background and perspective. The relation between legal theory and other Islamic disciplines including substantive law (furū` al-fiqh), theology (kalām), and grammar (naḥw) will be touched upon.

Introductory Literature:

• Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories : An Introduction to Sunnī uṣūl al-fiqh . Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence . 3rd rev. and enl. ed. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2003.
• Weiss, Bernard G. The Spirit of Islamic Law. Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1998.
• Weiss, Bernard G. The Search for God’s Law : Islamic Jurisprudence in the Writings of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī . Rev. ed. Salt Lake City : University Of Utah Press ; Herndon, Va.: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2010.

Professor Dr. Peter Adamson, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Necessity and Freedom in Philosophy of the Islamic World

One of the central philosophical debates in the Islamic world concerned the concepts of necessity and possibility. Two particularly controversial, and interrelated, issues were God's necessity and the capacity of human agents to act freely. Regarding the first, a dominant philosophical conception of God (associated especially with Avicenna) made Him a "necessary existent" who cannot fail to exist, and cannot fail to create the universe. Against this, al-Ghazali and others insisted that God must be a freely acting agent, even if He does exist necessarily. Then there was the further question of whether humans are genuinely free agents: are their actions constrained by God, because all things proceed from Him necessarily, or because God decides freely what will occur instead of us, or even because God knows in advance what we will do, which makes our actions necessary? In this course we will examine contributions on these issues from both philosophers and theologians, and touch on Jewish and Christian thinkers who worked in the Islamic world. Some of the thinkers to be considered will include al-Ash'ari and his Mu'tazilite opponents; Saadia Gaon; Yahya ibn 'Adi; Avicenna; and al-Ghazali.

Introductory Literature:

• P. Adamson, “Freedom and Determinism,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. R. Pasnau, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), vol. 1, 399-413.
• P. Adamson, “From the Necessary Existent to God,” Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 170-89.
• C. Belo, Chance and determinism in Avicenna and Averroës (Leiden: Brill, 2007)
• Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, translated by M.E. Marmura (Provo: 1997), especially the opening sections on the eternity of the world.

Dr. Krisztina Szilágyi, University of Cambridge

Religious Debates in the Medieval Middle East

Discussions of religious topics were a common feature of life in the medieval Middle East, in both spontaneous and organized form. Muslim notables, even caliphs, sometimes entertained and educated themselves with sessions of religious debates. For such occasions they occasionally invited not only Muslims of various theological persuasions, but others as well: Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and materialists. These encounters left manifold traces in the literary record, often as texts claiming to be straightforward reports of them. In this course, we will study the phenomenon of debating religion in the medieval Middle East through accounts of disputations and other relevant primary sources written by Muslims, Jews and Christians. We will discuss, among other general matters, the social and intellectual context of the debates, and the technique and the education of the disputants as represented in the texts. We will devote several sessions to examining specific topics recurrent in the primary sources, such as the criteria of the true religion, the nature of God, sexual ethics and rituals. We will conclude with a glance at the changes first modernity and westernization, and more recently globalization and online communication wrought on debating religion.

Introductory Literature:

Primary sources

• Michael Cook, “Ibn Sa‘dī on Truth-Blindness,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 33 (2007), pp. 169-78. In Arabic: al-Ḥumaydī, Jadhwat al-muqtabis, ed. Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Cairo, 1952), pp. 101-102.
• David Thomas, “Two Muslim-Christian Debates from the Early Shī‘ite Tradition,” Journal of Semitic Studies 33 (1988), pp. 53-80. In Arabic: Ibn Bābawayh, Kitāb al-tawḥīd, ed. Hāshim al-Ḥusaynī l-Ṭihrānī (Tehran, 1387/1967), pp. 270-75, 417-27 (chs. 37 and 65).
• Krisztina Szilágyi, “Chapter Three: The Disputation of the Monk Abraham of Tiberias,” in S. Noble and A. Treiger (eds.), The Orthodox Church in the Arab World (700-1700): An Anthology of Sources (DeKalb, Ill., 2014), pp. 90-111, 300-308. In Arabic: Le Dialogue d’Abraham de Tibériade avec ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Hāšimī à Jérusalem vers 820, ed. Giacinto Būlus Marcuzzo (Rome 1986), pp. 264-95, 299-369, 503-33.

Scholarly literature

• Sidney H. Griffith, “The Monk in the Emir’s Majlis: Reflections on a Popular Genre of Christian Literary Apologetics in Arabic in the Early Islamic Period,” in Hava Lazarus-Yafeh et al. (ed.), The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden 1999), pp. 13-65.
• Sarah Stroumsa, “Jewish Polemics against Islam and Christianity in the Light of Judaeo-Arabic Texts,” in Norman Golb (ed.), Judaeo-Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies (Amsterdam, 1997) pp. 241-50.
• Hava Lazarus-Yafeh et al. (ed.), The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden, 1999).
• Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, N.J., 1992).

Professor Dr. Eric Ormsby, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London

Major Trends and Thinkers in the Shi’ite Tradition

The object of the course is to provide a detailed overview of the principal tendencies, schools and thinkers in Shī‛ite tradition from its beginnings to recent times. This will be done within a historical context. Thus, the disputed succession to the Prophet Muhammad and the conflict that ensued will be followed by a discussion of the events leading up to, and including, the caliphate of ‛Alī ibn abī Tālib and the consequences that resulted. The role of the early “extremists” (the ghulāt) and their doctrines will be studied. There will be a consideration of the formulation of the doctrine of the Imamate and especially the contribution of such figures as that of the sixth Imam Ja‛far al-Sādiq. The establishment and formal elaboration of doctrine during the Buyid period, the so-called “Shī‛a Century of Islam”, will be considered at length, along with its major thinkers. The course will also deal with divergent traditions, such as the Ismā‛īlī, and its major thinkers, such as Nāsir-i Khusraw, in some detail. Theologians of the Alamut period, such as Nāsir al-Dīn al-Tūsī, will be included. Thinkers of the Safavid period, such as Mīr Dāmād and Mullā Sadrā, will be read, and certain of their works, in Arabic or English translation, will be analyzed. The course will continue into modern times, with particular attention given to such figures as al-Khumaynī and the theologian Murtadā al-Mutahharī, as well to contemporary Reformist theologians in present-day Iran. Finally, since this tradition cannot be understood purely on its own terms, it will be necessary to look too at such major early (and continuing) influences as the Mu‛tazilite school of theology. Opponents of the tradition, such as al-Ghazālī, will be discussed as well, and their writings examined.

Dr. Yazid Said, Center for Islamic Theology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen

The place of Greek philosophy in Islamic thought

This course aims to introduce students to the contemporary study of Islamic philosophy and theology, the place of the Greek intellectual heritage in Islamic thought, and the major methods used in this study. Whilst Islamic philosophy has often been considered by some as part of the general study of philosophy, distinct from Islamic discursive theology, Kalam, there has also been a great surge of activity in the field with attendant argument about what should be the proper focus and method of such a work. Most contemporary studies of Falsafa recognize that much of Islamic philosophy is original, that one of its chief preoccupations (Reason vs Religion) was a wholly new subject untreated by the Greeks and that the influence of the Falasifa was much wider than previously imagined. The course will examine the translation movement and transmission of Greek thought into Arabic, the different methods of contemporary studies of Islamic philosophy as they are deployed to deal with the writings of Kindi (d. 870), Alfarabi (d. 950) and Avicenna (d. 1037). It goes on to examine how the Ash’arite theologian, Ghazali (d. 1111) reacted to the various philosophical systems, the differences and similarities between him and Averroes (d. 1198), and the more important directions in philosophy after Ghazali with particular reference to Henry Corbin and the Illuminationist school of post-Avicennan philosophers.

Professor Dr. Maribel Fierro, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid

Religion and Politics in Al-Andalus

The aim of this course is to analyze the interplay between politics and religion in the history of al-Andalus in three different levels: 1) The formation of an Islamic society in the Iberian Peninsula (Arabization, Islamization); 2) The construction of identity (genealogies, boundaries); 3) Debates about beliefs and norms inside the Muslim community and with other communities.

Prof. Dr. Hinrich Biesterfeldt, Seminar für Orientalistik und Islamwissenschaft, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Ethics in Graeco-Arabic Philosophy and Islamic Theology

The Greek ethical tradition has found its ways into Arabic literature in various forms: the aphoristic so-called wisdom literature (ḥikma), popular ethics proper (by authors such as Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī and Miskawayh), and mirrors for princes. Islamic religion and piety have their own ethical literature (e.g. Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī’s Qūt and al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ), and it is interesting to notice convergences as well as differences between both realms. The seminar will consist of a close reading and comparative analysis of selected passages from texts that feature (1) the structure and functions of the human soul and (2) the ideas on its virtues and vices.

Professor Dr. Maribel Fierro, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid

Religion and Politics in Al-Andalus

The aim of this course is to analyze the interplay between politics and religion in the history of al-Andalus in three different levels: 1) The formation of an Islamic society in the Iberian Peninsula (Arabization, Islamization); 2) The construction of identity (genealogies, boundaries); 3) Debates about beliefs and norms inside the Muslim community and with other communities.

Prof. em. Dr. Sidney Griffith, Catholic University of America, Washington

The Intellectuals of Tenth Century Baghdad: Jews, Christians, Muslims

By the turn of the ninth century CE, Baghdad, founded some forty years earlier as the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphs, had become a flourishing cosmopolitan metropolis. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars from all over the Arabic-speaking world flourished there for a time in a scholarly convivencia unmatched anywhere else in the World of Islam, unless it be Cairo in the thirteenth century. The high point of intellectual fame was achieved in the tenth century, the era of Saadia Gaon, Ya„yā ibn ‘Adī, and Alfarabi, not to mention the flowering of ᶜilm al-kalām in all three communities.

Through careful reading of primary and secondary texts, the purpose of this course is to highlight the understudied interaction of scholars from the several communities in their philosophical and religious pursuit of knowledge and the ways of humane conduct in the de facto religiously plural society of Abbasid Baghdad. Beginning with a review of the intellectual riches infused into Arabic scholarly circles through the translation movements of the ninth century, the course focuses its attention on the works and topics that occupied the major Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ᶜulamā’ of the tenth century, finally extending the view into the work of their successors up to the middle of the eleventh century CE. (1) the structure and functions of the human soul and (2) the ideas on its virtues and vices.

Professor Dr. Jon McGinnis, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Natural Philosophy in Medieval Islam: Its Historical, Scientific and Philosophical Context

Central to any complete philosophical system is an account of the physical world, that is, the world around us that we experience and with which we interact every day. Natural philosophy, or the study of nature, is just that, an account of the physical world. In this course you are introduced to a number of issues and puzzles associated with things natural and how thinkers in the medieval Islamic world addressed these issues and puzzles. You are asked to consider these topics both against their historical setting and for their own inherent philosophical and scientific value. As to this latter point, while some of the issues treated are dated—we no longer believe that there is an absolute up or down—others are still with us and very much debated by physicists and philosophers alike: Is matter continuous, atomic or some combination thereof? What constitutes a process? What is the nature of time? How are we to understand modalities, like possibility and necessity in nature? Moreover, the answers to many of these questions have ramifications not only for one’s scientific outlook but also for one’s metaphysics and theology. At the end of the course not only will you have a general knowledge of the physical systems of some great medieval thinkers but also you will see how natural philosophy influenced the culture, intellectual history and worldview of medieval Islam. You might even learn a little about the world around you in the process.

Dr. Raquel Ukeles, curator of the Islam and Middle East collections of the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

Legal Theory and Religious Practice in Medieval Islam

Islamic law is more than a system of laws but a world of norms, values and aspirations. Its main sources – the Qur'an and Hadith – provide guidance for all aspects of a person's life, including civil behavior, devotional practice, theology and ethics. In particular, the Prophet Muhammad served as the paradigm for religious behavior. The medieval Islamic legal tradition developed models and methods to interpret these canonical sources and to determine legal norms for all types of acts. The reality, however, proved to be quite a bit more messy – the Qur'an and Hadith did not always provide clear guidance and many religious practices developed that lacked clear links to the legal tradition. Moreover, political rulers intervened at times in religious practices, alternately lending support to jurists and to popular sentiment. Given the tension between legal theory and religious practice, jurists worked actively to preserve the authority of the legal tradition and its relevance in shaping Muslim religious life.

The course will examine the theoretical legal frameworks that medieval jurists built to assess religious acts and then will analyze how jurists applied these frameworks to popular religious practices. We will begin with an overview of Islamic law and its defining features, and will then examine several models of religious practice by leading medieval legal thinkers, such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya and al-Shatibi. We will also examine the different institutional roles of jurists and their interactions with political rulers. Third, we will analyze a number of case studies of medieval religious practices both from historical material and from legal treatises. Comparisons to medieval Jewish law under Islam on religious practices will highlight the consequences of different models for preserving the authority of the legal tradition and the link between canonical sources and religious practices.

The goal of the course will be to gain a basic understanding of Islamic law both in theory and in practice and to understand the dynamic processes involved in the development of a religious legal system.