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BTI Consortium | Last Updated November 14 - 9:00AM
ISLAMIC STUDIES
School
BTI Category
Semester
Professor
Class Day & Time
Grading Option
Credits
Professor Approval Req'd?
Online?
Prerequisite?
Notes
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN 735
Women, Gender, and Islam
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Investigates the way Muslim religious discourse, norms, and practices create and sustain gender and hierarchy in religious, social, and familial life. Looks at historical and contemporary challenges posed to these structures. This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Research and Information Literacy.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Kecia Ali
T
3:30-6:15pm
Grading Option
Letter/PF/Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
Y
Notes
Pre-req: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CAS WR 100 or 120).
School
Boston College Department of Theology
THEO5010-01
THE GREAT BOOKS OF ISLAM
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
This course surveys some of the literary classics of the Islamic tradition, works that could be counted among the great books of Islam. The texts chosen belong to a strain of Islamic civilization known asadab: classics that offer a variety of perspectives on what it means to be cultivated, learned, virtuous, wise, and pious. The course examines the place ofadabin Islam as a whole and in relation to Islams religious, ethical, and political outlooks. In particular, the question of religious humanism will return throughout the semester: what is the significance of the humanistic venture in Islam for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and how does this compare to secular notions of humanism? Students will do a close reading of some of the great books of Islam from different centuries and genres, including historical writing, political treatises, belles-lettres, epic poetry, mysticism, autobiography, and the modern novel.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Welle
TR
12-1:15p
Grading Option
L/PF/A
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
Grad/Undergrad split
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3175
Indian Ocean Islam
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Does thinking oceanically influence the study of Islam? Can we remember a people's history of the Indian Ocean world? This course considers these questions and others as it focuses on religious worlds within port cities and the networks of Indian Ocean Islam. The course examines how religion in port cities and islands was centered upon a plethora of saints, missionaries, divinities and other agents of Islam, who have been marginalized in academic literature on the Indian Ocean. It simultaneously examines how oceanic religion was intimately connected to economic, political and technological developments. Students will be introduced to scholarship on oceanic Islam and monsoon Islam, before they are introduced to a variety of sources on transregional Islamic networks and agents of Islam, including biographies, hagiographies, travelogues, novels, poems and ethnographic accounts. Students will, moreover, be encouraged to consider ways in which approaches to studying Islam could be enhanced by a focus on religious economies and networks, as well as the lives of "subalterns" who crossed the porous borders of the Indian Ocean world and shaped its religious worlds. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Religion 1821 and Islamic Civilizations 136.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Ali Asani
R
3-5PM
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3139
Shi'i Interpretations of Islamic History and Thought
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Islamic history and thought are often taught from the perspectives of Sunni Islam. In this course we will re-center the marginalized and dis-privileged Shi'i interpretations of Islam which continue to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Shi'i Muslims, individually and collectively, have played disproportionally greater roles in furthering the intellectual achievements of Islamic civilization through their seminal scientific, philosophical, theological, artistic, and literary contributions. In this course we will survey key historical moments from the death and succession of the prophet Muhammad in 632 to the present-day probing the intersections of the institution of imamate with the major Shi'i dynasties of the Buyids (fl. 945-1055), Fatimids (fl. 909-1171) and Safavids (fl. 1501-1722) down to the modern state of Iran. We will study the doctrines of __hir and b__in (exoteric and esoteric); taqiyya (dissimulation); na__ (specific designation of the imam); _ilm and ta_l_m (knowledge and teaching); da_wa (summons); mahd_ (eschatological redeemer) and qiy_ma (resurrection). We will examine a selection of primary and secondary texts that highlight the developments of Shi'i thought, ritual practices and communities in the wider discursive contexts of Islamic history within the major Shi'i branches of the Isma'ili's, Ithna_asharis and Zayd_s. In this course you will acquire in-depth knowledge and understandings of some of the most geo-politically significant religious communities of our times.
Professor
Class Day & Time
TBA
M
TBA
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3044
Shi'a Islam and Politics in the Middle East
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
From the conflict in Yemen pitting the Shi'a Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition, to the civil war in Syria and the Shi'a majority militia-led fight against the remnants of ISIS in Iraq, dominant media narratives portray conflict in today's Middle East as part of a proxy battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia rooted in an ancient dispute within the Muslim world between the Shi'a and Sunni sects of Islam. In this rendering, primordial hatreds are driving religious wars and civil conflict with Iran, at the heart of the so-called Shi'a crescent, and Saudi Arabia, the stalwart of true Sunni identity. However, such thinking masks over a more complex understanding of the changes occurring in today's Middle East and prevents accurately differentiating between distinct yet overlapping factors such as actual substantive theological and intellectual differences between Shi'a and Sunni Islam, state competition (that is, between Iran and Saudi Arabia), and historical legacies of empire and state building in the Middle East. This course addresses such dominant narratives and challenges conventional understandings of the interplay between religion and politics in the Middle East and how sectarianism, Shi'a Islam, and geopolitical conflict can be more properly understood from a rigorous analytical perspective and focuses on the foundations and varieties of modern Shi'a political thought; religious clerical institutions; Shi'a political parties and militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen; and Iran's Islamic revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and the Basij paramilitary organization. The course assumes no prior knowledge of Islam or the Middle East.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Payam Mohseni
W
3-5PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3157
Reading Women's Narratives, Recovering a Hidden Narrator: Toward an Islamic Feminist Theology
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
How (much) are the moral, political, and legal systems rooted in theology? If we revise different images of the divine, how may this change the frameworks that shaped our ethical and legal conceptions? In this course, we will review the most dominant images of God in different Islamic theological, mystical, and philosophical traditions. Then, we will try to re-construct a new image of God through reading the narratives of women in the Qur'an. Those stories would open a path towards a kind of narrative, feminist theology. We will read and discuss women's stories to find a hidden narrator and the hidden structures of power behind them. As the readers and interpreters of these narratives, students will finally write a short article on the opening questions above. There will be more readings and discussions than writing assignments. Due to the discussion structure of this course, at most 15 critical readers (students) will participant in this course.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Zahra Moballegh
T
12-2PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Hartford International
AM-551
Quran Recitation/Tajweed II
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
This course is designed for Muslim leaders, chaplains and anyone who is interested in learning/improving the Qur'anic recitation. Students will gain important knowledge on recitation of the Qur'an. In this course, the instructor will continue focusing on the correct pronunciation of Arabic letters and words with consistent application of tajwid rules. Once students understand and are comfortable with the application of the tajwid rules s/he can complete recitation of the entire mushaf at a better and faster pace more independently, in sha Allah.
This is the second phase of the Qur'an Recitation/Tajwid course. In the spring semester, we will be continuing tajwid lessons and reading Qur'an. The first part of the class will be teaching tajwid rules and the second part is for group tilawah - teacher reads aloud and students repeat after the teacher. There will be time for listening to the students' recitation, as well.
Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS - Islamic Studies: Elective
MAC - Islamic Chaplaincy Elective
MAC - Chaplaincy Elective
Professor
Class Day & Time
Okan Dogan
W
7-9:50pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
Y
Prerequisite?
Y
Notes
PREREQ: Quran Recitation/Tajweed I
School
Hartford International
DI-513-2
Introduction to Shia Traditions, Beliefs, and Practices
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
This course surveys the development of Shia Islam against the backdrop of major events and developments, views on succession after the Prophet, the formation of the caliphate, and the key Shia notion of Imamate. Various forms of early Shias will be introduced, including the Imamis, Zaydis, and Ismailis. Consequential developments in Iran and Iraq as well as the Fatimid Shia caliphate, which extended from Egypt and North Africa to Yemen and reached as far as India, will be studied through the prism of doctrine as well as art. The rift caused by the launch of the Crusades from the west and then by the coming of Mongol armies from the east will be addressed. The peak of Shia revival during the early modern period will be discussed in terms of religious and non-religious learning, especially related to architecture and trade. In addition, this course also discusses the importance of the Shia in the world today. At the end of the course, students will have acquired a broad understanding of Shia beliefs, practices, and traditions as manifested geographically from medieval Spain to contemporary Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and North America.
Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS - Interreligious Studies: Elective
MAIRS - Islamic Studies: Beliefs and Practices
Professor
Class Day & Time
Hossein Kamaly
R
5-6:50pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
Y
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN 753
Topics in Religion and Sexuality - Muslim Movements in the US
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Exploration of key topics and themes in the study of religion and sexuality, especially as they intersect with gender, race, and politics. Historical periods and religious contexts will vary according to instructor. Topic for Spring 2024: “Muslim Movements in the US: Race, Gender, and American Islam.” In this seminar, we analyze race, gender, and sexuality as instrumental sites of religious politics, focusing on Muslim historical experiences and social movements in the United States. We take a two-part approach to “Muslim movements:” First, we historicize the migratory movements of Muslims and Islam in the Americas—from enslaved Black Muslims to multiracial Muslim immigrants and refugees as well as anti-Muslim exclusions—placing migration scholarship on lived Islam, race, gender, and sexuality in conversation. Topics include slavery, labor, empire, displacement, policing, law, and family. Second, we take intersectional and transnational approaches to Muslim American social and cultural movements. We explore how Muslims and Islamic ethics have influenced US-based anticolonial, Civil Rights, Afro-Asian, antiwar, feminist, queer, and prison/police abolition movements. This interdisciplinary course bridges scholarship on Muslims from Islamic Studies, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Anthropology alongside the work of Muslim activists, cultural producers, and artists. Hub Units: Historical Consciousness, Ethical Reasoning, Creativity/Innovation.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Najwa Meyer
W
2:30-5:15pm
Grading Option
Letter/PF/Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
GRS RN 645
Shariah Law
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Shariah Law looks behind the stereotypes and headlines--despotic rulers, barbaric punishments, women's oppression--to understand the origins, history, and structure of Islamic law. Explores its implementation in various times and places, modern transformations, and contemporary debates over legal reform. This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Research and Information Literacy.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Kecia Ali
TR
12:30-1:45pm
Grading Option
Letter/PF/Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Boston College Department of Theology
THEO7855-01
Modern/Contemporary Islam in Context
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
A graduate-level in-depth overview of historically grounded modern and contemporary Islamic theological and legal thinking in both majority and minority contexts throughout the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States, with attention to: debates about the impact of colonialism, the Western Enlightenment, and the politics of resistance; political ideologies including secularism, nationalism, socialism/Marxism, democracy, authoritarianism, various forms of political Islam and the "Islamic" state, theologies of liberation, Salafism, and violence and extremism; Islamic law and justice; women, gender and sexuality; religious pluralism; science and medicine; and ethics and the environment.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Delong-Bas
M
3-5:30PM
Grading Option
L/PF/A
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
DOCTORAL
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3348
The Emergence of Islam: Contours and Controversies
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
The birth of Islam in the seventh century C.E. was a momentous historical turning point, but many aspects of this crucial process remain vigorously contested in modern scholarship. Was the Prophet Muhammad a local preacher of righteousness or the conscious creator of a religion with global ambitions? Is the Qur'anic text a record of Muhammad's own preaching or the result of a collective effort that continued after Muhammad (and perhaps had begun before him)? Did the early Muslims believe in the imminent end of the world or not? Was Islam originally an ecumenical monotheistic movement open to Jews and Christians, or did Islam's earliest adherents consider it a new and exclusive religion separate from Judaism and Christianity? Did Arabian tribes have a shared sense of belonging to a unified "Arab" ethnos before Islam, or did this sense of identity grow after disparate Arabian peoples conquered the Near East together? This course is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of such fundamental historiographic questions. In the process, we will delve into some of the earliest literary and documentary witnesses to early Islamic history and read from seminal works of scholarship on Islam's origins. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Religion 2800.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Mohsen Goudarzi
T
3-5PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3171
Spiritual Cultivation in Islam Part I: The Classical Era
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
This course, as part of the new HDS Initiative on Islamic Spiritual Life and Service, is intended for students preparing for vocation in a variety of settings in which they will provide Islamically-inspired service and support. The course will acquaint students with Islamic pedagogy and practice on spiritual cultivation, highlighting the foundational importance of spiritual-ethical virtues in Islamic piety and the lifelong quest for nearness to and knowledge of God. In addition it will:-explore ways in which spiritual-ethical cultivation has been fostered holistically in the lived devotion of Muslim communities across time, place, and culture, including in various manifestations of the Islamic science of Sufism (ta_awwuf) and its traditional integration within educational and religious life and institutions, with attention to topics such as spiritual mentorship, spiritual training (tarbiya), spiritual companionship, oral tradition and transmission, devotional arts, and the creation of spaces for spiritual connection and service across religious, cultural, and social differences
-engage the students in experiential-learning exercises to deepen their understanding of relevant concepts and practices
-invite students to reflect upon what they are learning in relation to:
*their personal development, faith perspectives, and spiritual, ethical, intellectual, and vocational formation
*the Islamically-inspired service they will provide within and beyond Muslim communities
*ways to support their own and others' growth in this pursuit
*language and approaches for engaging varied audiences with this topic and pursuit in their respective settings
Professor
Class Day & Time
Ousmane Oumar Kane, Khalil Abdur-Rashid
T
3-5PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3138
Gender, Possession, and the Islamic Sciences of Healing
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
The seminar explores the relationship between health, 'faith healing,' and gender across Muslim societies. While the readings may give greater weight to work on Morocco, they will draw on a rich literature specifically on spirit and jinn possession in several African countries, the Middle East, South Asia, and increasingly Europe.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Zehra Parvez
T
6-8PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 3357
Critical Perspectives on the Dynamics and Development of Islam in Africa
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
An estimated 450 to 500 million Muslims live in Africa - close to a third of the global Muslim population. The overwhelming majority of them lives in the northern half of the continent, above the equator. The spread of Islam increased the contact between the peoples of North Africa, the Sahara, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The course is designed to provide an understanding of the spread of Islam and the formation and transformation of Muslim societies in Africa. It is organized in two parts. The first part of the course will focus on the history of Islamization of Africa, and topics will include the ways in which Islam came to Africa, the relationships of Islam to trade, the growth of literary in Arabic and Ajami, the rise of clerical classes and their contribution to State formation in the pre-colonial period. The second part of the course will feature guest lecturers who will present cutting edge research on the transformation of Islam in postcolonial Africa. Jointly offered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as Islamic Civilization 179.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Ousmane Oumar Kane
F
11-1PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F
Credits
4
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
N
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
School
Hartford International
AM-650
Tilawah: Quran Recitation
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
This course is designed for students who completed Tajwīd Courses 1 & 2. It will be an intensive course for Qur’ān recitation (Tilāwa). It can be beneficial for Muslim leaders, chaplains, and others interested in advancing their Qur’ānic recitation.
Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS - Interreligious Studies: Elective
MAIRS - Islamic Studies: Elective
MAC - Islamic Chaplaincy Elective
MAC - Chaplaincy Elective
Professor
Class Day & Time
Okan Dogan
M
4-6:50pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
Y
Prerequisite?
Y
Notes
PREREQ: Quran Recitation/Tajweed II
School
Hartford International
SC-532
Readings in Hadith
BTI Category
Semester
Islamic Studies
SP24
Compilations of hadith, or words attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, are the second most important form of scripture, or religious text, in the Islamic scholastic tradition. Hadith are an essential source of deriving Islamic law and determining what is deemed as Sunna or a model of proper Islamic practice based on prophetic precedent. In addition, hadith are critical to understanding the Qur'an and many of its general injunctions, which would be otherwise ambiguous without the correlating explanations found in hadith sources. This course will analyze the basic foundations of hadith studies (ʿulūm al-ḥadīth) which are essential to a well-grounded understanding of this important field of Islamic Studies. A progression of the various elements related to hadith studies such as hadith terminology, the legislative authority of the Sunna, methods of collecting and preserving hadiths, important transmitters, canonical hadith sources, hadith classification, weak hadiths, and forged hadiths, will be presented over the course of the semester to build a solid understanding of the role of hadith in shaping the Islamic scholarly tradition. This study of the scholastic aspects of hadith studies will culminate with an exploration of relevant contemporary issues such as debates regarding the authenticity of hadiths in Western scholarship.
Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS – Islamic Studies: Beliefs and Practices
MAIRS – Interreligious Studies Elective
MAC – Chaplaincy Elective
MAC – Islamic Chaplaincy Elective
Professor
Class Day & Time
Suheil Laher
M
7-9:50pm
Grading Option
Letter
Credits
3
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Online?
Y
Prerequisite?
N
Notes
N
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