Islam and Modernity
A 9-week introductory course with Dr. Timothy Gianotti
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Location: Upper classroom, Noor Cultural Centre
Fee: $275
Note: The course fee includes some materials. Students are, however, responsible for purchasing one required textbook: John J. Donahue and John Esposito, eds. Islam in Transition, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2007). Students may also wish to purchase (recommended) Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford University Press, 1991).
Class cap: 20 students
To register, please email [email protected] or phone 416.444.7148 ext.222.
Course Description and Outline
What is Islam? What is modernity? What does one have to do with the other? What are the principle ways in which Muslim thinkers and activists have responded (and continue to respond) to the challenges presented by modernity and by an international order founded upon secularism and modernism? What has been the experience of different Muslim communities and intellectuals (specifically those in the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia) as they have responded to the particular challenges posed by colonization, westernization, modernization, and globalization? In pursuing these and other questions, we will highlight the perspectives of Muslim thinkers, activists, movements, and communities from the current and past three centuries, which have witnessed and continue to witness many kinds of Islamic reform, renewal and revolution in the wake of Western political and cultural domination. We will also explore Muslim voices in Europe and North America and track new trajectories of renewal and reform in the West, where Muslims live as small but increasingly significant minority communities.
I. The Enlightenment and Modernity
SESSION 1 February 14, 2010
What exactly was the Enlightenment? The “Revolution” of the Enlightenment in Europe and its consequences; unpacking the worldviews of Tradition vs. Modernity: a taste of things to come; contrasting the respective relationships of Tradition and Modernity to time, economics, knowledge
SESSION 2 February 21, 2010
The “discontinuities” [or radical historical changes] brought about by modernity; the pace of change / the scope of change / modern institutions
SESSION 3 February 28, 2010
How does Modernity reshape society and human interaction? “Post-modernity”? Is modernity a quintessentially Western project? Is it the inescapable doom of all traditional ways of life? How?
II. Religion and Modernity
SESSION 4 March 7, 2010
Secularism; Judaism and Christianity in the modern world;
the challenges and changes modernity forces upon traditional religion: how the Enlightenment and modernity have influenced Christian and Jewish theology and community dynamics
III. Islam and the Modern Age
SESSION 5 March 14, 2010
While the industrial revolution and the “age of the Enlightenment” were taking off in Europe and America… European Colonialism and the corresponding “Qur’ānic” crisis of the 18th and 19th Centuries within the Islamic world… Religio-political calls for renewal and reform; Islam and the nation-state: unique challenges and sticky issues
SESSION 6 March 21, 2010
Going back to go forward: How do 18th & 19th century Muslim thinkers draw upon the classical Islamic tradition to counter the onslaught of European hegemony? How can they be seen to be adapting to Modernity and the Enlightenment? How do they define the fundamental problem for the Islamic world? Who is to blame for the current state of the Islamic world?
SESSION 7 March 28, 2010
Islam and nationalism; Islam and socialism. Are such couplings compatible? Islam and secularism (?); What is the difference between the modern conception of knowledge and the traditional Islamic conception of knowledge? Can there be such a thing as “Islamic” knowledge and/or science?
SESSION 8 April 4, 2010
Islam and social change: should modernity change Islam or should Islam change the modern world? Can we separate the outward form from the inward spirit of the religion? Can Islamic Law adapt? Should it adapt? How can it change if it is Divinely revealed for all cultures and all times? Women and their changing rights/roles within society… must their religious roles also change?
SESSION 9 April 11, 2010
Islam and the West: A clash of civilizations? Can Western influence be stopped or even contained? Should it be stopped?
Islam and democracy: are they compatible? Is democracy the cure-all for the traditional, Muslim world?
Ethnicity, nationalism, pluralism, and religion: what does Muslim identity mean within a globalized world? Final thoughts and questions
Timothy J. Gianotti currently serves as the 2008-2010 Noor Fellow in Islamic Studies at York University. In addition to introductory courses in Islamic religious history, theology, and mysticism, he teaches upper level undergraduate and graduate seminars that deal specifically with Islamic spirituality, Islamic theology, Islamic political thought, medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and the language and imagery of war within the Abrahamic religious traditions.
Image: Faisal Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan