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RELIGION 1816/HDS 3939: Ismaili History and Thought
Instructor: Ali Asani This course explores the doctrines and practices of the Ismailis, adherents of a minority branch of Shia Islam that recognizes the continuation of religious authority after the Prophet Muhammad through a particular line of his...
ISLAMCIV 241R: Approaches to Studying Indo-Muslim Culture and South Asian Islam
Instructor: Ali Asani Description: A seminar for graduate students focusing on current scholarship on Islamic civilization in South Asia. Course Notes: Open to undergraduates with a background in Islamic or South Asian studies. Recommended Prep...
RELIGION 1891R: Topics in Shii History, Thought and Literature
Instructor: Ali Asani Description: A course on selected topics in Shii History, Thought and Literature. Permission of the instructor required. Course Notes: Prerequisite: introductory course on Islam.
RELIGION 1814: Devotional Literatures of South Asia: Qawwalis, Sufiana Kalam (Sufi Poetry) and the Ginans
Instructor: Ali Asani This course explores traditions of devotional poetry in South Asia through the lens of three genres: the qawwali, concerts of mystical poetry; sufiana kalam, Sufi romantic epics and folk poems; and the ginans, songs of wisdom. In...
RELIGION 2810/ISLAMCIV 218: Islamic Institutions - Middle East and Beyond: Modern Transformations and Debates (19th-21st centuries)
Instructor: Malika Zeghal This graduate seminar explores the transformation of Islamic institutions in the modern period, such as religious endowments (Awqaf), sharia courts, and Islamic education. We will engage with the historiography of these...
HDS 3939/ISLAMCIV 186/RELIGION 1816: Ismaili History and Thought
Instructor: Ali Asani This course explores the doctrines and practices of the Ismailis, adherents of a minority branch of Shia Islam that recognizes the continuation of religious authority after the Prophet Muhammad through a particular line of his...
HDS 3045/RELIGION 1804/PERSIAN 108: Persian Sufi Literature
Instructor: Nicholas Boylston In this course we will explore the major genres of classical Persian Sufi poetry and prose. In addition to examining the formation of these genres and their contexts of composition, we will pursue a range of broader questions...
Religion, Gender, and Politics in Transnational Perspective
The course follows key themes in religion and gender as these were shaped and reshaped through the colonial and post-colonial eras. In particular, the religious history of American women and the history of women in Islam primarily in relation to the...
Build with Life: Transformation + Formation: Landscape and Islamic Culture
The uprisings of the North African Arab Spring exposed the fragility of countries whose citizens were eager to revisit and adapt their identities in the face of a changing world. However, it was impossible for these movements to be coupled with...
HDS 3847/GENED 1166: Pluralism: Case Studies in American Diversity
Instructor: Diana Eck How does our society deal with religious, ethical, and cultural diversity, and what challenges do we face as people of different faith communities encounter one another in cities and public institutions, schools and businesses...
AFRAMER 181X/HDS 3689: African Religion in the Diaspora
Intructor: Jacob Olupona This course focuses on the history and phenomenology of African peoples’ religious experiences in the Americas. The historical and social processes that led to the emergence of African diasporic religions in Latin America and the...
HDS 3172: Spiritual Cultivation in Islam Part II: The Modern Era
Instructor: Khalil Abdur-Rashid 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...
HDS 3620: Introduction to Islamic Mystical Traditions
Instructor: Ali Asani This course offers an introductory survey of mystical traditions of Islam, popularly labelled as “Sufism.” It explores the fundamental concepts, practices, and institutions associated with these traditions, their historical...
HDS 3175: Indian Ocean Islam
Instructors: Teren Sevea and Ali Asani 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...
RELIGION 1833: Islamic Missions: Reforming Muslim South and Southeast Asia
Instructor: Teren Sevea How did Islamic missions and missionaries reform Muslim South and Southeast Asia? What Islamic missionary idioms, orientations and movements emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Were South and Southeast Asia global...
HDS 3368: Islam, Modernity, and Politics
Instructor: Ousmane Kane The aim of this seminar is to study the evolution of Islamic thought and political practices in Muslim societies from the 19th to the early 21st centuries. Attention will be devoted to the patterns of interaction between the...
HDS 3171: Spiritual Cultivation in Islam Part I: The Classical Era
Instructors: Ousmane Kane and Khalil Abdur-Rashid 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...
HDS 3172: Spiritual Cultivation in Islam Part II: The Modern Era
Instructor: Khalil Abdur-Rashid 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...
HDS 3048: Intimacy and Emotion in the Lives of Muslim Women
Instructor: Alicia Izharuddin This course engages with critical issues in gender and emotions at the intersection of Muslim identity and culture. It brings to the fore interdisciplinary scholarship – spanning media studies, anthropology and sociology –...
HDS 3047: Hadith Jibril: An introduction to the theological, legal, and spiritual dimensions of Islam
Instructor: Yasir Fahmy This course will engage in a critical reading and analysis of Hadith Jibril. Also known as Umm Al-Hadith (or the mother of Prophetic narrations), this narration gathers the essential acts and practices that are to be performed...
HDS 3169/ISLAMCIV 146: Al-Ghazali’s Thought and Legacy
Instructor: Mariam Sheibani Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) is known as “The Proof of Islam” and is widely considered to be the most influential philosopher, theologian, and mystic in Sunni Islam. This course will serve as an inquiry into al-Ghazālī’s...
FRSEMR 37Y: Muslim Voices in Contemporary World Literatures
Instructor: Ali Asani Description: What do Muslims think of acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam, the mixing of religion with politics, the rights of women, the ``West''? This seminar investigates the viewpoints of prominent Muslim writers on...
Muslim Voices in Contemporary World Literatures
What do Muslims think of acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam, the mixing of religion with politics, the rights of women, the ``West''? This seminar investigates the viewpoints of prominent Muslim writers on these and other ``hot button''...
CULTBLF 60/HDS 3429: Religion in India: Texts and Traditions in a Complex Society
Instructor: Diana Eck An exploration of the classical texts, spiritual teachings, epic narratives, and religious movements that have shaped a complex civilization for some three thousand years, from the Indus Valley to today. Readings in primary sources –...
HDS 3628/CULTBLF 19 : Understanding Islam and Contemporary Muslim Societies
Instructor: Ali Asani The course is an introduction to the fundamental concepts of Islam and the role that religious ideas and institutions play in Muslim communities around the world. Its main concern is to develop an understanding of the manner in which...
Monuments of Islamic Architecture
An introduction to ten iconic monuments of the Islamic world from the beginning of Islam to the early modern period. The course introduces various types of building-mosques, palaces, multifunctional complexes-and city types and the factors that shaped...
Islam and Politics in the Modern Middle East
The course critically examines the ideologies and political strategies of twentieth century Islamist movements, as well as their origins and evolution. It will relate the emergence of organized Islamist movements in the first part of the twentieth century...
GENED 1008: Power and Identity in the Middle East
Instructor: Melanie Cammett Why are some countries governed democratically while dictators seem to have a firm grasp on power in others? Why do people threaten and even kill each other in the name of ethnicity or religion in some places and times but not...
DPI 440: Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Instructor: Tarek Masoud Explores the major political, economic, social, and security challenges facing - and emanating from - the Middle East. Particular attention paid to the causes of the so-called Arab Spring and the prospects for genuine...
MUSIC 190R: Topics in World Music: Music in Islamic Contexts: South and Central Asia
This course focuses on arts of sound associated with Islam in South Asia and Central Asia (including Iran). We explore how specific musical procedures and uses of sound cut across these Asian regions, and how ideologies, philosophies, and texts—associated...
DPI 397: Islam in the American Public Sphere: A Case Study for Strategic Diversity Leadership
Instructor: Khalil Abdur-Rashid This course will examine Islam and the American Muslim community as a case study which reveals the challenges and perspectives emerging from the encounter of a global faith community in America with the intersection of race...
HIST 2014: Historiography of the Modern Middle East: Proseminar
Instructor: Rosie Bsheer This graduate seminar aims to familiarize students with some of the major debates in the field of modern Middle East history and pays careful attention to competing theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. It will...
DPI 440: Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Instructor: Tarek Masoud Explores the major political, economic, social, and security challenges facing - and emanating from - the Middle East. Particular attention paid to the causes of the so-called Arab Spring and the prospects for genuine...
ISLAMCIV 170/HDS 3368: Islam, Modernity and Politics
Instructor: Ousmane Kane The aim of this seminar is to study the evolution of Islamic thought and political practices in Muslim societies from the 19th to the early 21st centuries.Attention will be devoted to the patterns of interaction between the Muslim...
RELIGION 2810/ISLAMCIV 218: Islamic Institutions - Middle East and Beyond: Modern Transformations and Debates (19th-21st centuries)
Instructor: Malika Zeghal This graduate seminar explores the transformation of Islamic institutions in the modern period, such as religious endowments (Awqaf), sharia courts, and Islamic education. We will engage with the historiography of these...
HDS 3357/Islamic Civilization 179: Critical Perspectives on the Dynamics and Development of Islam in Africa
Instructor: Ousmane Kane 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...
Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
DPI-440 This course explores the major political, economic, social, and security challenges facing - and emanating from - the Middle East. Particular attention paid to the causes of the so-called Arab Spring and the prospects for genuine democratization...
Getting and Keeping Democracy
DPI-407 This is a course about how democracy comes into being and how it breaks down, and about what citizens, activists, and policymakers around the world can do to make the former more likely and the latter less so. Around the world, there is an...
Political Institutions and Public Policy
DPI-101 This is a course about fundamental problems of participation, democratic governance, and conflict in contemporary political systems. It will provide students with an analytical toolkit for understanding and acting on the political dimensions of...
Architecture in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar Architecture of the eastern Mediterranean basin (at Italian, Ottoman, and Mamluk courts) with emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and transmission of the Romano-Byzantine heritage, science and technology...
HIST 2538: Introduction to Islamic Law
Instructor: Intisar Rabb Description: This course will survey core concepts of Islamic law ( sharia) in historical and comparative modern contexts. Popular perceptions of this legal system imagine it to be a static code from 7th-century Arabia. Islamic...
HIST 1018: Coffee and the Nighttime: History and Politics, 1400-2020
Instructor: Cemal Kafadar Since the fifteenth century, individuals and societies in different parts of the world adopted a gradually but unmistakably quickening tempo in their everyday lives and started to make more uses of the nighttime –for socializing...
HIST 2014: Historiography of the Modern Middle East: Proseminar
Instructor: Rosie Bsheer This graduate seminar aims to familiarize students with some of the major debates in the field of modern Middle East history and pays careful attention to competing theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. It will...
Syria: History, Politics, and Religion
This conference course takes the history of Syria over the longue duree as its object of study. Spanning Syria?s political history from the genesis of Islam to the foundation of Syria as a modern nation state, the course additionally focuses on four...
HAA 122X: Architecture in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar Architecture of the eastern Mediterranean basin (at Italian, Ottoman, and Mamluk courts) with emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and transmission of the Romano-Byzantine heritage, science and technology...
HUMAN 20: A Colloquium in the Visual Arts
Instructors: David Roxburgh, Yukio Lippit, Joseph Koerner, and Jinah Kim Description: An introduction to major works of art and architecture from around the world, co-taught by a team of professors. Subjects include Eadweard Mybridge and photography...
HAA 12M: Monuments of Islamic Architecture
Instructors: David Roxburgh and Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar An introduction to key monuments and cities - Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, Isfahan, Istanbul, Samarqand - from the historical Islamic lands, ca. 650-1650 C.E., from Spain to India. Various building types...
HIST 2009: Oil and the Arabian Peninsula: Culture, Power, History: Seminar
Instructor: Rosie Bsheer The principal analytical focus in this seminar will be the role of oil in shaping the cultural, social, political, and economic relations of the Arabian Peninsula. This region has long been at the center of global circulations of...
HAA 228N: Islamic Ornament: Aesthetics of Abstraction and Theories of Perception
Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar Course Description: Critically explores the historiography and interpretations of Islamic ornament. Themes include ornamentality and abstraction, theories of perception, orientalist discourses on the so-called...
HAA 100R: Sophomore Excursion Course
Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar, Jinah Kim, and Melissa McCormick This course introduces sophomore concentrators to on-site study of art and architecture through the case study of a particular geographic and cultural area. This year: India
HAA 127M: Medieval Architecture in Greater Iran and Central Asia
Instructor: David Roxburgh The seminar examines cities and monuments built in Greater Iran and Central Asia from the 11 th through 15 th centuries spanning three principal dynastic periods (Seljuqs, Mongols, and Timurids). Various functional types—mosques...
HAA 11: Landmarks of World Architecture
Instructor: David Roxburgh and Lisa Haber-Thompson Examines major works of world architecture and the unique aesthetic, cultural, and historical issues that frame them. Faculty members will each lecture on an outstanding example in their area of expertise...
Architecture in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Instructor: Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar Architecture of the eastern Mediterranean basin (at Italian, Ottoman, and Mamluk courts) with emphasis on cross-cultural encounters and transmission of the Romano-Byzantine heritage, science and technology...
HDS 3340: Communities of Knowledge: Science, Religion and Culture in Medieval Europe and Islam
Instructors: Ahmed Ragab and Katharine Park How did people understand nature in the Middle Ages? Is “premodern science” a contradiction in terms? What does it mean for science to be “religious”? How did medieval “Western” and “Islamic” civilization differ...
HLS 2688: DIGITAL ISLAMIC LAW LAB (DILL) :: TECHNOLOGIES FOR DIGITAL ISLAMIC LAW: BUILDING A DATABASE
Instructor: Intisar Rabb Feb 12 | 5.00-7.00p Co-Conveners: Sharon Tai, Deputy Editor, Program in Islamic Law (PIL) & Mariam Sheibani, Visiting Fellow, Program in Islamic Law (PIL), Harvard Law School Advised by Harvard Law School faculty and MIT data...
HLS 2517: Islamic Law: Human Rights Advocacy in the Muslim World
Instructor: Salma Waheedi This course will focus on human rights advocacy in the Muslim world. After providing an introduction to Islamic law, the course will address difficult questions at the intersection of human rights law and some interpretations of...
ARABIC 243DR: Islamic Religious Sciences
Instructor: Shady Nasser An introduction to research methodology in various genres of Islamic Religious sciences: Quran, Hadith, and Law. Minimum recommended: two years of classical Arabic. Two years of classical Arabic or equivalent level of proficiency.
MODMDEST 315: Reading al-Manar in the Interwar Period
Instructor: Malika Zeghal Meeting approximately every other week, students will establish digital maps and databases based on al-Manar and other periodicals in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt in the Inter War Period. Enrollment only by instructor's permission...
ISLAMCIV 218/RELIGION 2810: Islamic Institutions - Middle East & Beyond: Modern Transformations & Debates (19th-21st centuries)
Instructor: Malika Zeghal This graduate seminar explores the transformation of Islamic institutions in the modern period, such as religious endowments (Awqaf), sharia courts, and Islamic education. We will engage with the historiography of these...
ARABIC 245R: Classical Arabic Seminar: Readings in Arabic poetry, grammar, and language
Instructor: Shady Nasser A survey of medieval Arabic writings on Arabic poetry, grammar, and language with special focus on the theme of standardization of Arabic grammar and poetics and how they serve as tools for interpreting literary texts. We read a...
ARABIC 152: Introduction to Qur'an and Hadith
Instructor: Shady Nasser An introduction to Qurʾān and Ḥadīth disciplines. A survey of different schools of Qurʾānic interpretation within the Arabic/Islamic tradition. The course introduces the discipline of Ḥadīth (Prophetic tradition) and the role it...
ISLAMCIV 145B/HDS 3602B: Introduction to Islamic Philosophy and Theology: The Modern Period (19th and 20th centuries)
Instructor: Khaled El-Rouayheb Description: The course is a continuation of Islamic Civilizations 145a but may be taken independently. It explores the thought of some of the major Islamic philosophers and theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries...
ARABIC 243BR: Introduction to the Rational Sciences
Instructor: Khaled El-Rouayheb Description: Reinforcement of advanced classical Arabic grammar and stylistics, and introduction to the genres of usul, kalam, mantiq and falsafa. Recommended Prep: Three years of Arabic or equivalent level of proficiency.
ISLAMCIV 241R: Approaches to Studying Indo-Muslim Culture and South Asian Islam
Instructor: Ali Asani Description: A seminar for graduate students focusing on current scholarship on Islamic civilization in South Asia. Course Notes: Open to undergraduates with a background in Islamic or South Asian studies. Recommended Prep...
MODMDEST: The Modern Middle East, Real and Imagined: An Introduction
Instructor: Malika Zeghal An introduction to Middle Eastern Studies focusing on the modern period (19th and 20th centuries). Lectures will be broadly sequenced according to historical chronology but will be thematically organized. They will provide some...
MODMDEST 315: Reading al-Manar in the Interwar Period
Instructor: Malika Zeghal Meeting approximately every other week, students will establish digital maps and databases based on al-Manar and other periodicals in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt in the Inter War Period. Enrollment only by instructor's permission...
ISLAMCIV 145A: Introduction to Islamic Philosophy and Theology: The Classical and Medieval Period
Instructor: Khaled El-Rouayheb Islamic Civilizations 145A is an introduction to some of the key problems and figures in medieval Islamic theology and philosophy. The main topics covered will be: The rise of theological controversies in early Islam and the...
ARABIC 249R: Arabic Philosophical Texts: Seminar
Instructor: Khaled El-Rouayheb Description: Readings on selected topics in Islamic philosophy. Recommended Prep: Three years of Arabic or equivalent.
HIND-URD 105R: Topics in Hindi-Urdu Literature
Instructor: Ali Asani Individual reading course. A course for students with native or near-native proficiency with readings in a variety of genres from Hindi and/or Urdu literature based on student interest.
HIND-URD 91R 001: Hindi-Urdu Supervised Readings
Instructor: Ali Asani Instruction in Hindi-Urdu in topics not covered in the regular curriculum.
New Podcast! Ali Sethi: From Lahore With Love
Pakistani musician and author Ali Sethi, AB ’06, returned to Harvard to talk to his longtime friend and mentor Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim Religion and Cultures, about sufi poetry, his own artistic journey and life as a perpetual student of the...
Approaches to Studying Indo-Muslim Culture and South Asian Islam
Instructor: Ali Asani A seminar for graduate students focusing on current scholarship on Islamic civilization in South Asia.