Schedule

Week 1 (February 21): Introduction and Induction; Establishing the Sunna

Week 2 (February 28): Holiday

Week 3 (March 6): Establishing the Sunna

Week 4 (March 13): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Week 5 (March 20): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Week 6 (March 27): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Week 7 (April 3): Holiday

Week 8 (April 10): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

Week 9 (April 17): Midterm (the first essay submission, by 17.00 pm)

Week 10 (April 24): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

Week 11 (May 1): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

Week 12 (May 8): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

Week 13 (May 15): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

Week 14 (May 22): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

Week 15 (May 29): Categories for Categorisation

Week 16 (June 5): Categories for Categorisation

Week 17 (June 12): Final Examination (the second essay submission, by 17.00 pm)

NA

Course Requirements/Grading standards

Students are expected to 1) have a good command of reading English and classical Arabic; 2) be committed to fulfilling the reading tasks; 3) engage in the discussion on the given theme.

Two Essays — 60%

Tutorials — 40%

Reading Assignment

Week 1 (February 21): Establishing the Sunna

J.A. Brown, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oxford: One World, 2009), 69–75; Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph : Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 58–96; Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, trans. C.R. Barber and M. Stern, vol. 2 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1971), 17–37, 89–125.

Week 3 (March 6): Establishing the Sunna

Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, trans. C.R. Barber and M. Stern, vol. 2 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1971), 89–125.

Wadād al-Qāḍī, Al-Kaysāniyya Fī al-Tārīkh Wa-l-Adab (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1974), 14–40.

Ibn Māja, Sunan, ed. Bashshār ʿA. Maʿrūf (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1998), vol.1, 41–240.

Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ and Muḥammad K. Qurra Balalī (Beirut: Dār al-Risāla al-ʿĀlamiyya, 2009), vol.7, 5–52.

Week 4 (March 13): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt Al-Islāmīyīn Wa-Ikhtilafāt al-Muṣallīyīn, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1990), vol.1, 33–65.

Anvari, Mohammad Javad and Koushki, Matthew Melvin, “al-Ashʿarī”, in: Encyclopaedia Islamica, Editors-in-Chief: Wilferd Madelung and, Farhad Daftary. Consulted online on 12 December 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0300

W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology : An Extended Survey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985), 64–68.

Nguyen, Martin, “al-Fūrakī, Abū Bakr”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 12 December 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27207

Week 5 (March 20): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt Al-Islāmīyīn Wa-Ikhtilafāt al-Muṣallīyīn, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1990), vol.1, 65–105, 140–166.

Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi‘I Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi‘ism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 45–75.

Heinz Halm, Shiism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 3–23.

Week 6 (March 27): Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his Maqālāt al-islāmīyīn

Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt Al-Islāmīyīn Wa-Ikhtilafāt al-Muṣallīyīn, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1990), vol.1, 160–162, 166–190.

Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), 125–141.

Wilferd Madelung, The Succession to Muḥammad : A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 184–260.

Week 8 (April 10): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Al-Farq Bayna al-Firaq, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1995), 3–29.

al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām Al-Nubalāʾ, ed. Ḥassān ʿAbd al-Mannān (Beirut: Bayt al-Afkār al-Dawliyya, 2004), 2315.

Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt Al-Aʿyān Wa-Anbāʾ Abnāʾ al-Zamān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972), vol.3, 203.

Week 10 (April 24): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Al-Farq Bayna al-Firaq, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1995), 29–53.

Josef van Ess, Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra: A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam, trans. John O’Kane, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 268–313.

Week 11 (May 1): ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī and his Farq bayna al-firaq

ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Al-Farq Bayna al-Firaq, ed. Muḥammad M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1995), 65–73.

Josef van Ess, Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra: A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam, trans. John O’Kane, vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 314–472.

Week 12 (May 8): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā a al-Nawbakhtī and Saʿd b. ʿAbdallah al-Qummī, Firaq Al-Shīʿa, ed. ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ḥafanī (Cairo: Dār al-Rashād, 1992), 11–23.

Kraemer, J.L., “al-Nawbak̲h̲tī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 12 December 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5861

Madelung, Wilferd. 2009. Bemerkungen zur imamitischen Firaq-Literatur. Der Islam. 43(1-2): 37-52. Retrieved 17 Dec. 2019, from doi:10.1515/islm.1967.43.1-2.37

Week 13 (May 15): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā a al-Nawbakhtī and Saʿd b. ʿAbdallah al-Qummī, Firaq Al-Shīʿa, ed. ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ḥafanī (Cairo: Dār al-Rashād, 1992), 69–83.

A.J. Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shi‘ism: Ḥadīth as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 19–31.

Heinz Halm, Shiism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), 31–59.

Week 14 (May 22): al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-shīʿa

al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā a al-Nawbakhtī and Saʿd b. ʿAbdallah al-Qummī, Firaq Al-Shīʿa, ed. ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ḥafanī (Cairo: Dār al-Rashād, 1992), 84–109.

Muḥammad b. Isḥāq Ibn al-Nadīm, Al-Fihrist, ed. Riḍā Tajaddud (Tehran: Dār al-Masīra, 1988), 223–226.

Week 15 (May 29): Categories for Categorisation

Najam Haider, The Origin of the Shīʿa: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Place in Eighth-Century Kūfa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 189–230.

I-Wen Su. ‘The Family History of Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī: the Ninth-Century ʿAbbāsid Political Elite and the Ṭālibids in Sāmarrāʾ.’Journal of Islamic Studies 29-3(2018): 417–448.

Week 16 (June 5): Categories for Categorisation

Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2016, 176–245 (especially, 188–191).