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Syllabus Introduction to Islam in South Asia - 35330
עברית
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Last update 02-11-2015
HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: asian studies

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Michal Hasson

Coordinator Email: michal.hasson@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: By appointment

Teaching Staff:
Ms. Michal Hasson

Course/Module description:
South Asia is home to a host of remarkably diverse Muslim communities making up about a third of the global Muslim population. The course will survey the history of Muslim presence in South Asia, the political and social changes among Indian Muslims in the colonial period and the interaction with the Hindu majority from the 8th century to the 20th century. Other themes we will examine will be Islamization, Sufism and popular religion, language, literature and poetry and feminine voices in Muslims traditions of South Asia.

Course/Module aims:
Introduction to the rich history of Muslim communities in South Asia.
A re-examination of the categories ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ which shaped the modern political map of South Asia

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• Exhibit good basic knowledge of the main developments in the history of Muslim communities in South Asia.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the main historiographic issues related to Islam in South Asia
• To critically engage the scholarship on these topics

Attendance requirements(%):
100%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lecture and class discussion

Course/Module Content:
• Introduction to the Course: defining key terms, geographical scope and period
• Early Muslim Presence in South Asia from the 8th to the 12th Century
• The Delhi Sultanate
• Mughals 1: Historical survey
• Mughals 2: Mughal heritage, art and architecture
• The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagar Empire
• Sufism
• Islamization
• British Colonialism and Reactions to Colonialism: Reform movements among Indian Muslims in the 19th and early 20th century
• Women, Reform and Political Identity
• Who is a Muslim? The Ismailis and Ahmadiyya as Case-Study
• Urdu, Hindi and Political Identity at the Turn of the 20th Century


Required Reading:
• R. M. Eaton. Essays on Islam and Indian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Introduction
• Romila Thapar. “Somanatha and Mahmud.” Frontline, vol. 16 issue 8, April 1999.
• Yohanan Friedmann.“Islamic Thought in relation to the Indian Context.” In Richard M. Eaton ed. India’s Islamic Traditions, 711-1750. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp.50-63.
• Muzaffar Alam, "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics" Modern Asian Studies Vol. 32, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 317-349
• Catherine B. Asher, “A Ray from the Sun: Mughal Ideology and the Visual Construction of the Divine,” in Matthew T. Kapstein, ed., The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience (Chicago: University) pp. 161-194.
• Cynthia Talbot, “Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India” in Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 692-722.
• Richard M. Eaton “The political and religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid.” In Richard M. Eaton ed. India’s Islamic Traditions, 711-1750. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp. 263-284.
• P. Hardy, ’Modern European and Muslim Explanations of Conversion to Islam in South Asia: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature,’ in: N. Levtzion ed., Conversion to Islam. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979. pp. 68-99.
• Francis Robinson, "The British Empire and Muslim Identity in South Asia." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 8 (1998), pp. 271-289.
• Barbara Metcalf . “Islamic Reform and Islamic Women: Maulana Thanawi's Jewelry of Paradise." In Barbara Metcalf ed. Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam. Berkeley: University of California Press 1984. pp.184-195.
• Teena Purohit. The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. Introduction
• Yohanan Friedmann. Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Aḥmadī Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background. Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies 3. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989
• Francesca Orsini, ed. Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010. Introduction pp. 1-20.
• Barbara D. Metcalf. "Presidential Address: Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Muslims in the History of India." The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp. 951-967.



Additional Reading Material:
• Richard M. Eaton. “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States." In Gilmartin, David, and Bruce B. Lawrence eds. Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000. pp.246-281.
• Simon Digby. “Before Timur Came: Provincialization of the Delhi Sultanate through the Fourteenth Century.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 47, No. 3, Between the Flux and Facts of Indian History: Papers in Honor of Dirk Kolff (2004).
• Carl Ernst. Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Chapter 3 pp.38-61.
• Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Writing the Mughal world: Studies on Culture and Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012
• Koch, Ebba. "The Mughal Emperor as Solomon, Majnun, and Orpheus, or the Album as a Think Tank." in Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, Vol. 27 (2010) pp. 277-311.
• Ebba Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Richard M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761 : Eight Indian Lives Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Phillip B. Wagoner "Sultan among Hindu Kings": Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara." The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 851-880.
• Eaton "Women's Grinding and Spinning Songs of Devotion in the Late Medieval Deccan" in Barbara D. Metcalf ed. Islam in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 87-92.
• Simon Digby "The Sufi Sheikh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India" in R.M. Eaton ed. India's Islamic Traditions 711-1750. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp. 234-262.
• R. M. Eaton, “Who are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal,” in: R. Robinson and S. Clarke (eds), Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, and Meanings. Oxford and New Delhi, 2003), pp. 75-97.
• Barbara Metcalf Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860-1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Introduction.
• Barbara Metcalf. "Islam and Power in Colonial India: The Making and Unmaking of a Muslim Princess." The American Historical Review, Vol. 116, No. 1 (February 2011), pp. 1-30.
• Shamsur Rahman Faruqi . “A Long History of Urdu Literary Culture, Part 1: Naming and Placing a Literary Culture”. In Sheldon Pollock ed. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.pp. 805-863

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