Introduction to Islamic History from Muhammad to the Mongols

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course offers a survey of Middle Eastern history from the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE until the rise of Mongol successor polities in the 15th century. The course is structured to cover political, religious, and cultural developments and their relationship with broader changes in society during the formative centuries of Islamic civilization. Specific topics include the career of the Prophet Muhammad and the origins of the earliest Muslim polity; the creation and breakup of the Islamic unitary state (the Caliphate); ethnic, racial, and religious tensions and movements in the medieval Islamic world; the impact of Turkic migrations on the Middle East; the diversity of approaches to Muslim piety and their social and political expression; popular culture; non-Muslims in Islamic society; and the creation of the medieval Islamic "international" cultural order. Among the more important themes will be long-term cultural and social continuities with the Islamic and ancient Near East, and concepts of religious and political authority.