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Reform in Contemporary Islamic Thought

It has been argued that the Muslim world is in crisis. For many this crisis is centered upon religious authority which has become increasingly pluralized, and increasingly contested. This course explored arguments for intellectual reform in Islamic thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by systematically reading the texts of reform writers in North America and Europe. By doing so, this course will explore the various ways in which Islamic authority has been defined and redefined in contemporary Muslim societies. Additionally, this class will explore the complexity of this topic by looking at various external circumstances to the debate such as globalization, mass migration, colonization, and the commodification of knowledge. By the end of the course, students learned to: understand political, social, and religious causes for reform movements; meaningfully engage with various reform arguments; and identify points of convergence and divergence between various groups and actors. This class (THEO 114) was taught by Sohaira Siddiqui as a Doyle Seminar (small upper-level classes that foster deepened student learning about diversity and difference through research and dialogue).

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