This course will offer students the chance to tackle individual concepts within Islam and then go into an in-depth analysis of their origins, changes in meaning and their relevance to the everyday lives of Muslims by using a longue durée approach. Furthermore, there will be a constant effort to underscore how these issues remain deeply relevant today and thereby introduce students to currents debates as well. Over the course of the term, concepts like Islam itself and its manifold manifestations, prophethood, revelation, ijtihad, jihad, shariah, fatawa and many other such ideas and concepts will be deconstructed and analysed. By the end of the course, the student should have a firm grasp of both scholarly debates and their location in contemporary discourse.
