Islam, a cultural perspective

Unity and diversity in Allah's commonwealth. God is the greatest. The witness. Koran: the word of God. The Abode of Islam. Sunni Islam. Shici Islam. The common denominator. Mystical Islam. Islam in history and tradition. Fourteen centuries of Islam. The Classical Age. Empire after the Caliphate. Islamic World since the nineteenth century. Sacred tradition in Islam. Muhammad in the prophetic tradition. Muhammad in history. Sacred time and sacred biography. Select persons, places and events. The Rashidun. The Golden age of the Abbasids: Baghdad, City of peace. Beyond the Caliphate: Akbar of Mughal India Boundaries of community, faith and practice. Early Sectarian boundaries. Sectarian divisions during the age of the Rashidun. The Imamate. Cultural boundaries. The Shucubi or People's movement. Boundaries of belief. Ibn al-Rawandi. Boundaries of Piety. Abu Yazid of Bistam. Islamic expressions of form and beauty. The unifying factors of art. The visual arts. Arabesque. Calligraphy. Architecture. Painting and sculpture. Other art forms. Music. Poetry. Literature. Faith, worship and community. Belief and thought in Islam. Emphasis upon divine unity. From many gods to one. One God, many worlds and beings. Prophetic religion and the Koranic view of humankind. Historical development of Islamic thought. Early theological problems. The classic schools of Islamic thought. The late Middle Ages. The Modern Period. Two formative thinkers in Islam. Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780

855). Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali (1058

1111). Worship and ritual in Islam. Patterns of worship in Islam. Patterns of space and time in Muslim worship. Islamic festivals and holidays. Pilgrimage to Mecca. The pilgrimage experience. The Umra or Lesser Pilgrimage. The Hajj or Greater Pilgrimage. Understanding the Pilgrimage Experience. The Muharram passion. The Tacziyeh of Qasim. Experiencing sacred space and time. Community and society in Islam. Religion and society. The dialect of man and society. Great tradition and little tradition. Elements of social structure in Islam. Umma and Caliphate. Ulema. Waqf. Contexts of Islamic society. The Islamic city. An Egyptian village. The Iranian Bazaar. The Sufi Order. Tradition and change in Islam. Sacred paradigms in history. The old and the new in the yet-to-come.