Courses

The course examines the history of the establishment of the new religion of Islam (610 CE) and the subsequent formation of new Islamic world empires. The course places the rise of Islam within the context of late Antique Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian societies. It also examines how Islamic empires built upon the foundations of the earlier Graeco-Roman and Persian empires of the Mediterranean and Iran, and how they responded to the changing dynamics of the 7th through 11th centuries. The course pays close attention to the establishment and evolution of religious traditions, the emergence of new forms of Arabic (and Persian) literature, and the founding of new traditions of medicine and science. The course highlights the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual nature of these empires, which were shaped significantly by the migrations of populations both within and from outside the boundaries of these empires.