The Muslim Cultures Focus cluster is offered in the spring semester. This Focus cluster is open to first- and second-year students. It attracts both Muslim and non-Muslim students and requires no prior knowledge of Islam.

MUSLIM CULTURES SPRING FOCUS CLUSTER:

The Muslim Cultures Focus features different faculty and courses each year, but it always offers students a broad introduction to the peoples, institutions, beliefs and practices that characterize the Muslim world. Read more about the Focus Program

The Muslim Cultures Focus embodies DISC’s belief that interdisciplinary scholarship and cross-cultural engagement can foster new interpretations of Islam and promote positive relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the Muslim Cultures Focus, we grapple with the complexity of Islam as a global phenomenon with many distinct historical and cultural expressions.

We approach the Islamic world and Muslims through comparative, cross-cultural lenses as we explore the cultural and pop-cultural representations, expressions, and variations of Islam across the globe.

The Muslim Cultures Focus is an important gateway to other undergraduate Islamic Studies opportunities, especially the Islamic Studies certificate and DukeEngage programs. Applications to DISC’s DukeEngage programs from Muslim Cultures Focus participants will receive priority consideration.

SPRING 2010 Muslim Cultures Focus Cluster: The Middle East & Beyond:

AMES 166 Egypt: Mother of the World

Professor Ellen McLarney, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

This course explores the modern history of Egypt as a cosmopolitan intersection of cultures—“mother of the world” (umm al-duniya) is an Arabic moniker for Egypt. After a brief glance at controversy over “Black Athena” and Egyptian influence on Greek civilization, we turn to the “outsider” knowledge of Egypt that accompanied Napoleon’s conquest in 1798. We visit Duke’s Rare Book Collection to view extensive original manuscripts, diaries, watercolors, and encyclopedic descriptions of Egypt, including the multiple volumes of the Description of Egypt compiled by the “specialists” accompanying Napoleon. Students are encouraged to work from these original materials in developing a research project.

“Mother of the World” concentrates on the contemporary cultural history of Egypt. The course looks at several intellectual/political trends such as Islamic reform, Arab Renaissance, and Women’s Awakening. How did these contribute to the later emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab Nationalism, and Islamic Revival? We explore this history through Egyptian letters (novel, drama, poetry, autobiography), film, popular culture, mass media, and critical histories. We hope to arrange an optional trip to Cairo over spring break to get a concrete taste of the abstract material we are studying. This optional voyage en Egypte includes visits to Islamic as well as ancient Egyptian sites, such as mosques, madrasas, and Pharonic ruins.

89FCS Making Muslim Africa: Islamic Mysticism in Africa

Instructor, Bruce Hall, Department of History

In this course, we will ask how and why Islam was adopted by so many people in Africa (slightly less than 50% of Africans are Muslims today). Although we will pay some attention to the larger history of the spread of Islam in Africa, we will be primarily interested in issues of religious practice among different strata of African populations over time. One of the principle vehicles for the extension of Muslim practice in Africa was the teachings and institutional structures embodied in Islamic mysticism (which is known by the term “Sufism”). Islamic mysticism was absolutely central to the spread of Islam in Africa, and to its particular dynamism in different parts of the continent. For many African Muslims today—as in the past—Sufism is an essential part of their practice and belief as Muslims. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to both Islamic mysticism and African history.

The course assumes no prior knowledge of Islam, Islamic mysticism, or African history. The approach that we will take will be in some ways based on the curriculum that an African student of Sufism would be familiar with. We will read English translations of important Islamic mystical texts written and read in Africa. We will approach the subject through the various means used to spread the message of Islamic mysticism—and Islam—to different Africans over time. We will read fables, riddles, poems, and spiritual biographies; we will listen to Sufi music and songs, and watch Sufi performances; and we will learn about the intellectual framework that Islamic mysticism is based on. In learning about Sufism, we will also be learning about Islam. Equal time will be spent on North Africa, Sudanic West Africa and Niolitic and Coastal East Africa. The objective of the course is to provide students with a working knowledge of Islamic history in Africa and an initiate’s understanding and appreciation of the body of thought and practice embodied by Islamic mysticism.

 

Political Science 117 FCS: Introduction to Middle East Politics

Abdeslam Maghraoui, Political Science

This course introduces students to the politics of the Middle East and North Africa. It examines the deep cultural, social, and ideological factors that inform politics and shape state-society relations. We will focus on the main challenges facing the region today including: the struggle for emancipation, Islamic contestation, identity politics, and pivotal regional conflicts. The course covers select countries from the Middle East (Arab states, Iran, Israel, and Turkey) as well as North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya). In this course, we will study specific countries to illustrate general challenges and opportunities in the region. The course has 3 objectives:
1. Develop a solid understanding of the most important political actors, institutions, and ideologies in the region.
2. Gain critical insight into the similarities and differences among Middle East states and societies.
3. Sharpen analytical skills to comprehend and explain politics in different cultural, social, and idelogical contexts.

REL 195 FCS: The Qur’an Over Time

Professor Bruce Lawrence, Department of Religion

The Qur'an is the central text of Islamic ritual and belief, yet it remains a closed book to most non-Muslims or to anyone not familiar with the grammatical rigors of the Arabic language. But if it is really the case that the Qur'an cannot be effectively translated out of Arabic, and if all translations are but approximations and reductions of originary meaning, then how can we approach English translations in an undergraduate seminar on the Qur'an? In this course we will look at the question of translatability and an even larger question: how does one teach the Qur'an as religious literature from a neutral viewpoint? Can the Qur'an ever be understood from a secular, or non-¬theological, perspective? What lessons might one apply from literary criticism? We will also explore how we can use the Internet as a resource, both for locating translations of the Qur'an and for exploring the multiple, often conflicting, ways that it is interpreted both by Muslims and by non¬-Muslims. We will constantly refer to readily available websites that pose major questions and take us in new directions that reflect 21st-century realities for all believers, whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish or secular.

Descriptions can be found on the Focus Program's website.

PAST MUSLIM CULTURES FOCUS OFFERINGS:

SPRING 2009 Muslim Cultures Focus: The Middle East and Beyond:

SPRING 2009 MUSLIM CULTURES COURSES:

CulAnth 180S: Cultures of Conflict: Israel and Palestine

Professor Rebecca Stein

This course examines the ways that Arabs and Jews in the contemporary Middle East are represented in cultural texts such as memoirs, fictional writings, travelogues and film (documentary and feature).  

Turkish 135S Euro-Islam: Turks from the Ottoman Empire to the European Union
Professor Erdağ Göknar
This course explores the development of “Euro-Islam” beginning with the establishment of Turkish and Muslim communities in the Balkans (under the Ottoman Empire) to the present situation of immigrant communities in Germany and Turkey’s EU aspirations.

AMES (AALL): Al-Qaeda’s Terrorism: Roots, Responses and Ramifications
Professor Mbaye Lo
Using class readings, guest speakers, films and discussions, students will analyze case studies from the Middle East and beyond in order to differentiate Muslim proper narrative discourse from the terrorist ideologies of Al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups.

Complete Course Descriptions can be found on the Focus website:

Spring 2008: Muslim Cultures: Islam Beyond Terrorism

Religion 89 FCS: The Politics of Interpretation: The Qur’an from Rumi to bin Laden

Professor Bruce Lawrence,

AALL 173S: Gender Jihad: Muslim Women Writers

Professor miriam cooke

Rel 89 FCS: Allah, Sex, and Money

Professor Ebrahim Moosa

Students in the spring 2008 Muslim Cultures Focus also participated in trips that exposed them to different Islamic cultures.  Some students traveled to the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia. Others traveled to Cairo, Egypt during spring break, where they met with students from American University in Cairo and toured sites in Cairo.

Spring 2007: Muslim Cultures: Islam Beyond Terrorism

Rel 166S: The Qur'an Over Time

Professor Bruce Lawrence

Turkish 106S: Muslim Identities in Eurasia

Professor Erdağ Göknar

Lit 120 BS: Islam and Comparative World Cinemas

Professor Negar Mottahedeh