BA Course Descriptions

Please refer to the section on Arabic courses for a description.

This course examines the sciences associated with the study of the sacred text, known in Arabic as ¢ulūm al-Qur’ān. Topics include types of revelation; books of revelation; history of the transmission, collection, arrangement, and standardization of the Qur’an; variant/multiple readings found in the ¢Uthmānic Codex as well as the pre-¢Uthmānic manuscripts; language; vocabulary; textual analysis/collation and translation theories; principles of exegesis and abrogation; virtues; and inimitability. Students focus on concepts embedded in the classical Islamic tradition but also explore key contemporary reference works. Instruction centers upon the seminal Itqān fī ¢ulūm al-Qur’ān by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūţī (d. 911 AH/1505 CE), as presented by contemporary scholars Ahmad von Denffer and Justice Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani. To gain familiarity with contemporary Western diachronic and synchronic approaches to the Qur’an, and to respond critically to the challenges they may present, students engage with Michel Cuypers’ The Composition of the Qur’an: Rhetorical Analysis, along with Carl Ernst’s How to Read the Qur’an. The standard Geschichte des Qorans of Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930) recurs prominently throughout the semester.

The prophetic tradition and the sciences associated with it form the core of this seminar. Topics include the history of hadith compilation; hadith structure and content; major hadith canons; criteria for hadith authentication; nomenclature; the importance and practical uses of hadith in law, theology, and ethics, and as historical and rhetorical resources; as well as Western criticism and Muslim responses to this criticism. Students must study, decipher, and memorize Al-Manżūmah al-Bayqūniyyah, the didactic poem of Imam al-Bayqūnī, and hadith from al-Nawawī’s Forty Hadith collection. Lastly, they interact with excerpts from original Arabic hadith canons.

The history of Arabic logic, its development in the classical period, and its reception in subsequent Muslim thought forms the core of this material. Instruction focuses on terms, definitions, propositions, syllogisms, and fallacies. Such historical texts as the sixteenth-century Al-Sullam al-munawraq fī ¢ilm al-manţiq, a versification of Imam al-Abharī’s medieval work the Kitāb al-Īsāghūjī, bring to light the place of logic in the other Islamic sciences. Students develop a firm grasp of Arabic logical terms and so acquire a vital toolkit for future scholarship in the Islamic tradition. The course also surveys the contributions of Muslim thinkers to the ongoing development of logic. While preparing weekly assignments, students see that assigned readings and class discussions provide a platform to identify and develop topics for their research paper on the history of logic in the Islamic tradition. A comprehensive exam concludes the semester.

This course is designed to provide students with a basic outline of Islamic history and introduce them to various methods employed in contemporary historical research about Muslim societies. Students learn how to distinguish between the study of Muslim peoples and the study of the history of Islam as a socio-political phenomenon. They are exposed to the unique spiritual and intellectual traditions of Islam, as distinct from the dynastic, or power-centric, model of Islamic historical study. Students also examine the global impact of Western European modernization, the ways in which Muslim societies responded, and how those responses inform the contemporary challenges and crises of the Muslim world.

Please refer to the section on Arabic courses for a description.

In thirteen books, the Elements works out the logic of plane and solid geometry, elementary number theory, and incommensurable lines. Starting from just five axioms, Euclid derives most of basic geometry in Book I. Although the conceptual framework of a mathematical proof and its necessity constitutes a difficulty even for advanced math majors, the Elements offers direct and accessible inferential argumentation expressed in ordinary language without dense theoretical preliminaries. Leading from axiom through deduction, the Elements builds mathematical structure from scratch. In this introductory course, students verify the propositions of Book One that yield the Pythagorean theorem and its converse (I.47 and I.84). In place of exams, students develop and present geometric proofs both orally in class and through written homework assignments. Well acquainted with the nomenclature of geometry, students learn to formulate a proof with an irrefutable argument and to grasp how a mathematical system unfolds.

History and literature provide the lens through which students examine the important ancient texts written before or during the Axial Age (Achsenzeit; the eighth to third centuries BCE). Using both descriptive and prescriptive approaches, students engage with these texts directly to analyze their themes, contents, literary styles/devices, and meanings. They also familiarize themselves with the lost world from which these texts emerged. Comparing and contrasting the texts, students seek to determine whether and how early texts might have influenced later ones. Most of all, they think about what these works may mean for the world today. Readings include the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, the Pentateuch, and the Psalms of David from the ancient Near East; the Hymn to the Aten from ancient Egypt; the Theogony and Works and Days of Hesiod and the Histories of Herodotus from ancient Greece; the Analects of Confucius and Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu from ancient China; and the Bhagavad Gita and Dhammapada from ancient South Asia.

Directly examining the works of Plato (the Republic), Aristotle (the Politics), Thomas Aquinas (Questions on Law), Machiavelli (The Prince and the Discourses on Livy), Hobbes (Leviathan), Locke (Second Treatise on Government), Rousseau (On the Social Contract), Mill (On Liberty), and Marx (The Communist Manifesto and selections from Capital), seminar participants seek to understand how political philosophy shapes the institutions of government. These major texts from the history of political thought raise questions about the design of political and social orders. Students explore the ways in which these great thinkers responded to the particular political problems of their day, and the ways in which they contributed to a broader view of human goods and needs, the concepts of justice and democracy, and the proper relationship of the individual to the state. Throughout the semester, students build a lexicon of political thought and write weekly essays in response to prompts on the reading material.

A Muslim perspective on economic thought takes into account the competing views of humanity and nature reflected in Islamic and secular approaches to matters of production, consumption, and exchange. This course, therefore, begins with an analysis of the spiritual significance of production in traditional Islamic thought and its implications for the link between ethics and economics in consumption and exchange. Students then study the sequential secularization of the sciences of nature, production, and exchange in the West, which elevated economics as an independent discipline in the eighteenth century. Finally, students consider the effect of the secularization of neoclassical economics, particularly its theory of consumption, which replaces needs with wants and reduces values to tastes.

Principally, this course teaches the laws that govern the formation, care, and dissolution of the family. Students study the Islamic codes of marriage (nikāḥ), divorce (ṭalāq), legitimacy (naṣab), suckling (raḍā¢ah), child custody (ḥaḍānah), and maintenance (nafaqah). In the process of this study, they become acquainted with the rights and obligations of spouses, fitness and suitability in marriage (kafā’ah), abortion (ijhāđ), polygyny (ta¢addud al-zawjāt), guardianship (wilāyah), child support, and other topics.

This course in Constitutional law treats both law and legal theory in the United States. Students examine the legal ramifications of the separation of powers between the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and study individual liberties in our contemporary constitutional order. They also inquire into the relationships and interplay between federal, state, and local governments, and the roles and limits of those levels of government. Case study forms the core discipline that shapes the thinking and develops the analytical skills of the students.

This course examines the formation of the Ash¢arī and Māturīdī schools of Islamic theology, their synthesis of reason and revelation in dialectics and hermeneutics, their historical consolidation as Sunni orthodoxy, and the dogmatic theology of the Asharite response. Students undertake a careful examination of the Ash¢arī didactic poem Jawharat al-tawḥīd and its important modern commentary tradition. They further engage with the Māturīdī text Al-Bidāyah fī uṣūl al-dīn to discover the central theological issues that majoritarian Sunni Islam examined and the positions it embraced. Finally, students consider the relationship of theology with spirituality and ethics, how Muslim orthodoxy gives rise to social and political harmony, and the contemporary relevance of theology in dealing with atheism and scientistic reductionism. Weekly discussions probe students’ grasp of demanding texts. A major project requires the memorization, recitation, and explication of selections from Jawharat al-tawḥīd. A short research paper offers students the opportunity to demonstrate clear writing and cogent argumentation in the field.

The history of Western philosophy from c. 350 BCE through c. 1960 CE unfolds in three major epochs: Greek antiquity (Plato and Aristotle), late antiquity (Plotinus) and the Latin Middle Ages (Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham), and the modern and contemporary periods (Descartes, Nietzsche, Hume, Kant, and Ayer). Students also read contemporary philosophical texts that engage religious traditions with modern philosophical problems. The course furthers students’ development of philosophical reading and writing skills, with emphasis on careful analysis and exposition of arguments, clear definition of terms, consistent identification of fundamental principles, and the concise summarization of broad systems of thought.

This practicum in research and writing takes students step by step through the processes of (1) scholarly investigation; (2) the compilation and analysis of their findings; and (3) the production of a well-argued, properly documented research paper. Using A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, by Kate L. Turabian, and Garner’s Chicago Guide as reference works, class sessions consist of presentations on research methods and academic writing; research and note-taking exercises; and directed, practical, hands-on activities at the libraries of UC Berkeley and the GTU. Students formulate their senior thesis research question, articulate a clear thesis statement, prepare a preliminary outline, present an annotated bibliography, and submit their formal senior thesis proposal together with an abstract. The practicum director offers commentary and assesses each of these assignments and students’ performance in each of the class activities.

Please refer to the section on Arabic courses for a description.

The study of Islamic legal theory and the principles of Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) forms the core. Students learn the philosophical underpinnings of the primary and secondary legal sources; the indications of these sources; and the objective criteria that qualify a person to derive legal rulings directly from the sources of Islamic law (ijtihād), without being bound by legal precedent. Preconditions for the practice of this science include strong familiarity with positive law (furū¢), Arabic grammar and morphology, and logic. Students undertake a guided reading of a number of classical manuals, with a focus on the memorization of the key nomenclature of this science. The language of instruction for this class is English, with the requirement of reading texts in Arabic.

How does Islamic theology compare to or contrast with the defining elements in the dharmic faiths of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism; the ancient Far Eastern traditions of Taoism and Confucianism; and the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism and Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant)? Answering this question requires a systematic presentation of the main themes, concepts, beliefs, and key figures of each religious tradition. Special attention is given to the most common trends in classical Jewish and Christian theologies and how they intersect with or diverge from traditional Muslim conceptions of God. Students also critically examine some of the beliefs, theories, and trends that dominate contemporary academic theological discourse, which may include such widely divergent perspectives as perennialism and new atheism. 

Is there a normative Muslim view of the nature of the human soul and its relationship to the cosmos? Students study the evolution of Sufism, from the inception of Islam until its consolidation as an orthodox religious science, and the contribution it made in providing the theological and intellectual frameworks governing Muslim reflection on reality. Students also become familiar with the different genres of Sufi literature. The rich lexicon of terms in spirituality and related concepts provides students with extraordinary access to the history of the field and especially to textual traditions. Class participation constitutes an important verification of the care students take to read and assess the arguments and themes in assigned materials. A final project requires memorization, recitation, and explication of selected spiritual aphorisms.

This advanced course introduces juniors to the most influential texts of the classical period’s greatest thinkers: al-Kindī, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), al-Ghazālī, and Ibn Rushd (Averroës). The semester begins with al-Kindī, the first Muslim philosopher to have engaged Greek philosophy with Islamic teachings. Afterwards, students study Ibn Sīnā’s Al-Ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt (Remarks and admonitions) and examine its influence in shaping the curricula of the madrasa system, from its introduction to the present. Thirdly, students examine al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-anwār (The niche of light), in which he establishes the grounds, both in the Qur’an and hadith, for his philosophical and theological work. Finally, students consider Ibn Rushd’s Faṣl al-maqāl (The decisive treatise), which presents a clear view of the relationship between philosophy and religion from the perspective of both philosopher and a jurist (qāđī). As students explore these texts, they discuss the central issues and concepts of Islamic philosophy and theology and the relationship between religion, theology, philosophy, and Sufism. By the end of the semester, students grasp the main principles and themes addressed by these texts and are able to describe their formative influence on Islamic thought.

We cannot escape metaphysics. Even so, the term is notoriously difficult to define. Muslim theologians and philosophers have identified the subject matter of this science as the most general and universal of all things: the existent (al-mawjūd) qua existent. Hence, it has been called the scientia generalis. Since metaphysics comes after physics (¢ilm mā fī ba¢d al-ṭabī¢ah), we think of it as the science of divinity (al-¢ilm al-ilāhī), scientia universalis (al-¢ilm al-kullī), kalam theology (¢ilm al-kalām), and the first teaching (al-ta¢līm al-awwal). This course covers topics such as existence, nonexistence, quiddity, causation, substance, accidents, the categories, atomism, hylomorphism, universals, particulars, nominalism, immaterial objects, identity, persistence, proofs for the existence of the soul, and the faculties of the soul. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas’s explanation of the Islamic vision of reality and truth as “a metaphysical survey of the visible as well as the invisible worlds including the perspective of life as a whole” opens this course to topics such as the conception of religion and the meaning of happiness. Other topics covered include essentialism, conceptions of the self, social ontology, conception of the natural world, natural kinds, and epistemology.

How has ethics evolved as a branch of philosophy, both in its speculative and practical aspects? To answer this question, students start their inquiry with virtue ethics, especially as it unfolds in both the Euthyphro and the Gorgias of Plato, and in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. They continue by exploring the development of aretaism in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thought, especially Maimonides, Aquinas, and al-Isfahani. Thereafter, the course focuses on the Enlightenment and its turn away from virtue theory, particularly in the deontological ethics of Kant and the utilitarianism of Mill. Finally, students look carefully at the challenges of moral relativism in light of aretaic theory. Throughout the semester, students observe how metaphysics informs ethical perspectives and attempt to arrive at a clearer understanding of current ethical debates in the light of multiple perspectives. By the end of the course, students will have gained an appreciation of virtue ethics, recognizing the inherent tensions between aretaic traditions and modern ethical frameworks.

Astronomy investigates the origin of the cosmos (¢ilm al-kawniyyāt), the motion of celestial bodies (¢ilm al-falak), and time-keeping (¢ilm at-tawqīt). Historically, sustained and careful inquiry into these discrete fields of astronomy has generated other branches of empirical science. Students explore the development of astronomy in both Islamic culture and the West with special emphasis on how the heavens signal God’s order and design. Examining ancient and modern sources, students follow the discoveries of Ptolemy, al-Ṭūsī, al-Shāṭir, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Bīrūnī, Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, and arrive at last at a contemporary understanding of the universe. Their study emphasizes the motion of the sun, stars, and planets, moon phases, and the interrelation of celestial phenomena. Students then apply theory to practice by building an astrolabe to model the motion of the sun. Using their instruments to track star movement throughout the year makes it possible for them correctly to work out the times for prayer prescribed by Islam. While sighting the crescent moon further endows them with a fundamental skill for keeping time, study of positional and navigational stars teaches students how reliably to orient themselves to the qiblah. Assessments include written work, computational assignments, quizzes, and a final exam.

The key intellectual developments in the Muslim world from the late seventeenth century to the present unfold in this seminar, which investigates the thought and contributions of various figures who have influenced contemporary Islamic discourse in the areas of law, theology, philosophy, politics, ethics, and spirituality (taṣawwuf). Specific topics include secularism, reform (iṣlāḥ), independent reasoning (ijtihād), following qualified scholarship (taqlīd), public and private good (maṣlaĥah), decorum (adab), vicegerency (khilāfah), the nation-state, Muslim fundamentalism and extremism, constitutionalism, critical assessment (taĥqīq), critique, progressive Islam, gender, sexual orientation, the Enlightenment, modernity, the decline thesis, scholars (¢ulamā’) and new Muslim intellectuals, religious authority, Islamism, justice, freedom, Islamization, Muslim feminist thought, tradition, and philosophia perennis. 

Please refer to the section on Arabic courses for a description.

This course acquaints students with the Islamic teachings on business transactions, sales, and ethics. Students learn the basic components of a business transaction, contracts, types of exchanges, the rules of buying and selling, the impermissible forms of transaction, insurance, lease-purchase, mortgages, stocks and bonds, bank accounts, debts, refunds, financing, warranties, bankruptcy, monopolies, the various types of Islamic corporations, and much more. All topics are dealt with based on the guidance of the Qur’an, the sunnah, and the findings of Muslim scholars. 

What is the prescribed way of disposing of a person’s possessions after death, according to Islamic teachings? This course covers the laws of inheritance and wills, including heirs, the rules of exclusion (ḥajb), the law of increase (¢awl), the laws of return (radd), and shares. Students also study areas of disagreement between Muslim legal schools, along with some contemporary applications. Students engage in practical applications and exercises related to a number of hypothetical scenarios.

Our tradition regards Abū Ĥāmid al-Ghazālī, called “the proof of Islam” (ḥujjat al-islām), as the renewer (mujaddid) of the fifth-century hijrah. This advanced course looks deeply into al-Ghazālī’s synthesized understanding and approach to Islam in its legal, theological, cosmological, ethical, spiritual, political, sociological, and metaphysical dimensions. To this end, students study al-Ghazālī’s writings, focusing on the areas of epistemology, rationality, scriptural hermeneutics, the conception and classification of knowledge, the divine names and attributes, prophetology, the Qur’an, religious psychology, political and social dimensions of religion and religious practice, and heresiography. Students explore these fields, with the goal of developing a clear understanding of al-Ghazālī’s science of the path to the afterlife (¢ilm ţarīq al-ākhirah). The course teaches a method of close textual reading and proposes an interpretation of al-Ghazālī’s own method that distinguishes and holds together doctrinal judgments and comprehension. Additionally, students study the reception of al-Ghazālī and his works by the later Islamic tradition.

What do modern people mean when they speak of democracy? Is democracy always a government of the people, by the people, for the people? What are the historical roots of democracy? How do democratic institutions function in the modern world? Answers to these questions require a detailed investigation of foundational assumptions about democratic rule, the variety of political institutions that make it work, and the social impact that results therefrom. First, we survey historical critiques of democracy and republics in Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Livy, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Next, we consider the nascent liberalism of Locke and the systematic political taxonomy of Montesquieu, together with his theory of the separation of powers. Afterward, we focus upon the United States specifically and the concept of democratic pluralism as it unfolds in the Federalists (Hamilton, Madison, Jay), the anti-Federalists ( Jefferson, Henry, Mason), the US Constitution itself, and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Finally, these classical treatments of democracy become the lens through which the seminar will examine two contemporary works: March’s The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought and Hallaq’s The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Modern Predicament.