Hossein Latifi PhD: Course Syllabus

The course aims at covering basics of early Islamic History. After a short and general introduction to Islamic historiography, the students are first taken back to the era of Jahiliyya, i.e. pre-Islamic period. In surveying that period, they get familiar with the historical, social and political context in which Islam was born, and also with the mutual effects they (Islam and its context) had on one another. Then the course moves on to study the life of Muhammd, the prophet of Islam. His life is significant both in terms of the historical origin of Islam and also as the spiritual inspiration and authoritative source of Islamic teachings for the later generations of Muslims. Some controversial issues, like wars and slavery, are to be addressed either separately or within other discussions. The historical problem of leadership after Muhammad, Caliphate or succession to the Prophet, is among the main topics of the course.

Aim

To provide students with the basics of early Islamic history

Objectives

Know and get basic information about:

Historical origins of the religion of Islam;
Life and personality of Muhammad (the Prophet of Islam);
His role in growth and expansion of Islam
Problems of Caliphate and the divisions started therefrom.

Course Content

General and basic Islamic historiography
Terminology: Meaning of Islam, Jahiliya, etc.
The Jahiliya period
Muhammad’s biography and his central role in Islamic tradition
The birth and development of Islam
The Caliphate Problem
Some controversial issues

Detailed Outline

Introduction
1. Ancient and Islamic historiography
2. Different types of early sources of Islamic history
3. Problematic Issues in Early Islamic Historiography
4. Islamic History through others’ eyes
5. Motives to attend to recording and reading History
Pre-Islam Arabs or the period of jahiliya
1. Arabian Peninsula in the ancient world/Qahtan and Adnan Arabs
2. Positive and negative traits of Jahili Arabs
3. Religion, culture and sciences in Jahiliya period
4. Important events during this period (the year of elephant circa. 569 C.E./ wars of fijar)
Muhammad before Bi’tha (Receiving the first Revelation)
1. His linage and parents
2. Birth to adolescence
3. Shepherd and merchant
4. Second trip to the Levant and marriage with Khadija
5. Children of Muhammad
Start of Prophethood
Years in Mecca
1. Migration to Abyssinia
2. 3 year Sanctions
Migration
The first year of Hijra
1. Building the mosque
2. Makki and Madani verses
3. Encounter and treaty with Jews and Christians
The second year of Hijra
1. Change of Qibla direction
2. Battle of Badr
Third year of Hijra
1. the battle of Uhud
Fourth and fifth year of Hijra
1. the battle of Ahzab
2. the story of Banu Qurayza
Sixth year of Hijra
1. the treaty of Ridwan
2. Treaty of Hudaybiyya
3. Sending envoys and Invitation of other nations (kings) to Islam
Seventh year of Hijra
1. The battle of Khaybar
Eighth year of Hijra,
1. the triumphant return to Mecca
Ninth year of Hijra ;
1. Munafiqun (the Hypocrites),
2. Sura al-Bara’a
3. Tabuk, Muta,
4. Delegations of Arab tribes
The farewell pilgrimage, the final gathering of all Muslims around Muhammad
11 H/632C.E. Last days and Deathbed
Different dimensions of his character and how it influenced Muslims throughout history
The problem of succession and the divisions therefrom (1)
Controversial issues: polygamy, slavery, wars etc.

Course assessment

Course work: 2 essays - 25% of the final marks.

Semester final examination: 75% of the marks.

Course Methodology

Lectures, Presentations and Tutorials

Course Sources

Jafar Subhani, The Message.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/the-message-ayatullah-jafar-subhani

Mahdi Pishva'i, History of Islam up to the Demise of the Prophet (S)

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/history-islam-up-to-demise-prophet-mahdi-pishvai

Murtadha Mutahhari, The Unschooled Prophet (Available free at al-Islam.org)
Ibrahim Amini, Prophethood and the Prophet of Islam (Available free at al-Islam.org)
Sayyid Sa'eed Akhtar Rizvi, The Life of Muhammad The Prophet.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/life-muhammad-prophet-sayyid-saeed-akhtar-rizvi

Rasul Ja'fariyan, History of the Caliphs.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/history-of-the-caliphs-rasul-jafariyan

Sayyid Ali Ashgar Razwy, A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/restatement-history-islam-and-muslims-sayyid-ali-ashgar-razwy

Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari, Imamate and Leadership.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/imamate-and-leadership-sayyid-mujtaba-musavi-lari

Yasin T. Al-Jibouri, Muhammad.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/muhammad-yasin-jibouri

Mansour Leghaei, The Spread of Islam, From its beginning to the 14th Century.

Free download at: https://www.al-islam.org/articles/spread-islam-its-beginning-14th-century-shaykh-mansour-leghaei

S. Ahmad Rahnamaei, Life of the Prophet Mohammad before Starting the Mission (Available free at al-Islam.org)

Kamal al-Sayyid, Abu Talib b. abdul Muttalib (Available free at al-Islam.org)

Dr. Hatem Abu Shahba, Muhammad and His God Before the Revelation (Available free at al-Islam.org)

Shahnaze Safieddine, Migration to Abyssinia (Available free at al-Islam.org)

Focused readings might be assigned prior to certain sessions.

Other relevant sources might be introduced during the course.

Epistemology (Islamic Philosophy) (Course Syllabus)

Introduction
1. What is Epistemology?
2. History of Epistemology in Western and Islamic Philosophy
3. First division in Metaphysics: Ontology and Epistemology
4. Differences between Epistemology and Logic
5. Why is it important?
Terminology
1. 1. علم، معرفة، ادراک
  2. Knowledge, science, perception, cognition
Divisions of Knowledge (1)
1. Knowledge by presence and acquired knowledge
  1. Kinds of Knowledge by Presence
    1. Self-awareness
    2. Knowledge of feelings (inner sense) and emotions
    3. Knowledge of the faculties of the soul
    4. Knowledge of direct actions of the soul (will, judgment, deliberation, attention, decision)
    5. Knowledge of mental forms and concepts
    6. Knowledge of the Existence-giving cause about its effect and vice versa
  2. Knowledge by presence = always particular and true
    1. Objections and Responses
Division of Acquired Knowledge (1): (تصور و تصدیق)
1. Conception
  1. Particular
    1. Sense
    2. Imagination
    3. (Wahmiyyat in its philosophical sense)
    4. (Mulla Sadra’s problem with the particularity of conceptions)
  2. Universal
    1. Primary Intelligibles (معقولات اولی)
    2. Secondary Intelligibles (معقولات ثانیه)
      1. Logical
      2. Philosophical
2. Assent
Divisions of Acquired Knowledge (2) (بدیهی و نظری)
1. بدیهی
  1. Self-evident/Axiomatic (Assent)
  2. Simple and Immediate (Conception)
2. نظری
  1. demonstrable/deductive (Assent)
  2. Complicated and Composite (Conception)
Divisions of Acquired Knowledge (3)
1. True
  1. Definition of true knowledge: justified true belief
    1. Justification:
      1. (cf. sources of knowledge; below)
      2. deduction, induction, analogy
      3. argumentative, polemic, rhetoric, poetic, fallacious
    2. Truth (resemblance, correspondence & coherence)
  2. Possibility of True Knowledge
    1. Scepticism
    2. History
    3. different forms of Scepticism
      1. absolute Scepticism
        
        theoretical
        
        psychological
      2. Modified (Modern) forms of Sophism
        
        (relativism & perspectivism)
2. False
Divisions of Knowledge (2) by its sources
1. Intuition (self-consciousness etc.)
2. Five senses (inner sense?)
  1. Empiricism and Rationalism
3. Reason/Intellect
  1. Theoretical
    1. Universals
    2. Analysis
    3. Abstraction
    4. Deduction
  2. Practical
4. (ontological and epistemological three-fold hierarchy:
  1. 1. Sense/matter+form/ Material World
    2. Imagination/form without matter/ Mithal
      1. Muttasil/Internal and Munfasil/External Imagination
    3. Intellect/ Neither form nor matter/ Immaterial World)
      1. (The role and function of Khiyal (imagination) and Wahm)
5. Narration/testimony
6. Authority
Mental and External Existence
Epistemology of Religion and some commonly-raised issues.

Islamic Philosophy (Course Syllabus)

Introduction
1. Islamic Hikma and its Meaning
2. Relation between Religion (Islam) and Philosophy
3. Apologetics, Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism
4. Background of Islamic Philosophy
5. Main themes in Islamic Philosophy
6. The Goal of Islamic Philosophy
Historical Stages, Schools and Philosophers
1. Early Kalami Discussions
2. The Movement of Translation
3. The First Muslim Philosophers and al-Kandi
4. Al-Farabi (the First Muslim thinker with a comprehensive philosophical system)
5. Al-Razi & the Brethren of Purity
6. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) the Culmination of the Islamic Peripatetic Philosophy
7. Ibn Miskawayh and Al-Ghazali
8. Suhriwardi and the school of Ishraq (illumination)
9. Averroes, the Commentator of Aristotle
10. (Ibn Masarra, Ibn Baja, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Sab’in, Ibn Khaldun)
11. Nasir al-din al-Tusi and Mir Damad
12. Mulla Sadra and the Transcendent Philosophy
13. Contemporary strands
Main Themes and Problems
1. Theoretical Philosophy
  1. Ontology: Existence and Quiddity
2. Causality
3. Motion
4. Epistemology
  1. First Self-evident propositions

1. 1. Mental Existence
  2. Universal and Particular
  3. Sense, Imagination and Intellect
2. Three Subjects and Corresponding Discussions:
  1. Man:
    1. Immortality and the Hereafter

1. 1. Cosmos:
    1. Finite or Infinite
    2. Created in Time or Eternal in Time
  2. God, Philosophical Theology
    1. Existence of God
    2. Divine Attributes
2. Reason and Revelation or Science and Religion
3. Practical Philosophy
  1. Individual
    1. Predestination/Determinism vs. Free will
    2. Rational basis of Moral Judgment

1. 1. Political Philosophy and the Utopia
Logic and the Consolidation of Aristotelian Logic in the Muslim World
Side Discussions
1. Combination of Islam and Philosophy
2. Different Muslim Reactions to Philosophy
  1. Rejection as heresy

1. 1. Reception as a tool for interpretation of religious concepts
  2. Reception as an apologetic tool
Comparative Studies

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Islam, Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution

Papers

Human Unity for a Sustainable Peace. by: Sh. Mansour Leghaei

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Islam, Health and Well-being

Outline

Sources

Webpages:

Articles

Books

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Early History of Islam (Course Syllabus)

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