Islam in Late Antiquity

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

In contemporary media, Islam is often portrayed as an isolated and exotic religion. Scholars, too, have treated the emergence of Islam as the last definitive break with classical Antiquity. To evaluate and to challenge these views, this course will explore the emergence of Islam within its larger geographical and temporal frame, the fascinating period called Late Antiquity (c. 300-800CE)—a hinge between Antiquity and the Middle Ages during which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were taking shape in the Eastern Mediterranean world. The course has two units. Unit One, titled “Culture and History”, will take up the emergence of the Islamic community chronologically and explore its relationship to the world around it, beginning with pre-Islamic Arabia and ending with the Greek-Arabic Translation Movement and the eruption of literary culture in the early Abbasid period. Unit Two, titled “Religion”, will examine Islam’s relationship to the religious traditions of Late Antiquity thematically, looking at: Scriptural narratives, asceticism, preaching, orthodoxy formation, theology, law, and philosophy, and religious encounters. In both units, we will begin with close study of primary Islamic sources, then turn to parallel Jewish or Christian material, and finally evaluate the insights gained through this comparison by positioning them within scholarly literature. This course will be taught in English, and all primary sources will be read in translation.