Introduction to Islam (REL 112)
Bates College
What is Islam and who are Muslims? This course opens up a vista of complex ritual, practice, history, identity, politics, poetics, law, and storytelling to reveal that there are countless answers, and some important challenges to these questions. Beginning with the foundational story of Islam, the life of Muhammad in its Arabian historical and cultural context, we will move to the development of Islamic thought and its producers; and movements for power, justice, and “the right path” within Islam. In the process we will discuss what constitutes authoritative knowledge; what are the conceptions of justice and power; what is “the right path” with in Islam, to Muslims of different groups, across different geographies, and in different times.
Islam in the Americas (REL 272)
Bates College
The goal of this course is for you to acquire a global perspective on Islam in the Western hemisphere—its origins, the manner of its dissemination, and the varied experience of Muslims in the Americas, particularly the differences between Islam’s arrival in Anglophone and Hispanophone contexts. We will begin with Muslim life in West Africa on the eve of the Atlantic slave trade, focusing particularly on Muslim intellectual and spiritual history. We will then move to the Iberian peninsula, its role in the slave trade, and the Spanish empire’s regulation of Black and Muslim bodies in its colonies. We will then explore the experiences of the first Muslims in the US and their descendants; the first immigrant Muslims from south Asia and the middle east; and the formation of distinct threads of Islam in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We will end the course with a series of discussions on the implications of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Doctrine of Discovery have had on the history of Black life, Muslim life, and Black Muslim life in the US.
More coming soon!