Preliminary Syllabus: SHI`ITE ISLAM: Thought and History Hartford Seminary Fall 2015 Instructor: Dr. Sayed Ammar Nakhjavani E-mail: sanakhjavani@hartsem.edu Course Description: This course will be based on the assumption that Islam is both a belief system and a world civilization. Therefore, all movements, sects and schools of thought will be treated as an integral part of Islam, broadly understood. The course will introduce Shi`ism as a general phenomenon within Muslim history, but will concentrate on Twelver Imami Shi ism, as it is the most developed and influential Shi ite legal school (madhhab). We will study Shi ism in Muslim history from its beginning to the present. We will examine primary texts in translation, and when possible, in original languages. We will also read and discuss a good sampling of secondary literature. This is a graduate seminar that will be based on class participation and lectures. Grading will be based on class attendance and participation, weekly readings and discussions, and a class presentation of an individual research of a topic that will be developed into a 12-15 page final term paper.
Grading: Grades will be computed as follows: class participation, discussion and leading weekly book discussions 30%; class presentation of research topic 20%; and final term paper 50%. Email Policy: The instructor will use the official Hartsem student email addresses for all communications. Please check your Hartsem email account regularly. Office Hours: Office hours will be determined by the needs and schedules of the students. Required Readings: 1. Abu Mikhnaf, Lut ibn Yahya ibn Sa id. (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.). Kitab Maqtal al-husayn: Narrative of the Martyrdom of al-husayn. Montreal: Privately Printed, 2002. 2. Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. (David Streight, trans. And ed.). The Divine Guide in Early Shi'ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994. 3. Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of `Ashura in Twelver Shi`ism. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978. 4. Bayhom-Daou, Tamima. Makers of the Muslim World: Shaykh Mufid. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2005.
5. Crone, Patricia. God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge University Press, 2003. 6. Daftary, Farhad. A Short History of the Ismailis. Edinburgh University Press, 1998. 7. Daftary, Farhad. The Study of Shi'i Islam: History, Theology and Law. I. B. Tauris, 2014. 8. Haider, Najam. Shi'i Islam: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2014. 9. Hussain, Jassim M. The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam: A Historical Background. Muhammadi Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1982. 10. Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhạmmad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. Cambridge University Press, 1998. 11. Mavani, Hamid. Ayatullah Khomeini's Concept of Governance (Wilayat al-faqih) and the Classical Shi i Doctrine of Imamate. Published online, 2011. 12. Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi ite Islam. Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1993. 13. Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi ism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. 14. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
15. Newman, Andrew J. The Formative Period of Twelver Shi'ism: Hadith as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000. 16. Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi ism. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1981. 17. Schmidtke, Sabine. The Theology of Al-ʻAllāma Al-Ḥillī. Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1991. Recommended Readings: 1. al-sistani, Ayatullah Sayyid Ali al-husayni. (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.). Contemporary Legal Rulings in Shi i Law. Montreal: Organization for the Advancement of Islamic Knowledge, 1996. 2. Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. The Spirituality of Shi'i Islam: Beliefs and Practices. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. 3. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 4. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran. Oxford Paperbacks, 1989. 5. Bill, James A. and John Alden Williams. Roman Catholics and Shi i Muslims: Prayer, Passion, and Politics. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 6. Brunner, Ranie and Werner Ende, eds. The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious Culture and Political History. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001.
7. Corbin, Henry. Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. London: The Institute of Ismaili Studies Ltd., Kegan Paul Int l with Islamic Publications, 1985. 8. Dabashi, Hamid. By What Authority? The Formation of Khomeini's Revolutionary Discourse, 1964-1977. Social Compass. 1989. 9. Dakake, Maria. The Charismatic Community: Shi ite Identity in Early Islam. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2007. 10. Gleave, Robert. Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shiism: Baqir al-hakim, Ha'iri and Sistani on Ijtihad, Taqlid and Marja'iyya, Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 24, no. 2, 2007, 59-78. 11. Gleave, Robert. Early Shi'i Hermeneutics: Some Exegetical Techniques Attributed to the Shi'i Imams, in The Development of Method in Islamic Exegesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 12. Gleave, Robert. Inevitable doubt: Two Theories of Shi'i Jurisprudence, Leiden, Brill Academic Pub, 2000. 13. Gleave, Robert. Recent Research into the History of Early Shi'ism, History Compass, vol. 7, no. 6, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009, 1593-1605. 14. Gleave, Robert. Political aspects of modern Shi'i legal Discussions: Khumayni and Khu'i on ijtihad and qada', Mediterranean Politics, vol. 7, no. iii, Routledge, 2002, 96-116. 15. Halm, Heinz. Shi a Islam: From Religion to Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1997.
16. ibn Musa al-nawbakhti, al-hasan. (Abbas Kadhim, trans. And ed.). SHI'A SECTS: Kitab Firaq Al-Shi a. ICAS PRESS LTD, 2007. 17. Jafri, S. Husain M. The Origins and Early Development of Shi a Islam. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002. 18. Khumayni, Ayatu llah Seyyid Ruhu llah (Hamid Algar, trans. And ed.) Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981. 19. Kohlberg, Etan. The Abu Basir tradition: Qur'anic verses on the merits of the Shi`a, in: Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi. 2013. 20. Kohlberg, Etan. Authoritative scriptures in early Imami Shi`ism, in: Les Retours Aux Ecritures: Fondamentalismes Presents Et Passes. 1994. 21. Kohlberg, Etan. Belief and Law in Imami Shi`ism. Aldershot, Variorum Reprints, Collected Studies CS. 1991. 22. Kohlberg, Etan. Early attestations of the term Ithna-'ashariyya," in: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 2000. 23. Kohlberg, Etan. Imam and community in the pre- Ghayba period, in: Authority and Political Culture in Shi ism. 1988. 24. Kholberg, Etan, ed. Shi ism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.
25. Kohlberg, Etan. Shi`i views of the death of the Prophet Muhammad, in: Medieval Arabic Thought: Essays in Honour of Fritz Zimmermann. 2012. 26. Kohlberg, Etan. Taqiyya in Shi`a theology and religion, in: Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions. 1995. 27. Kohlberg, Etan. Western studies of Shi`a Islam, in: Shi ism, Resistance, and Revolution. 1987. 28. Madelung, Wilferd, and Sabine Schmidtke. Studies in Medieval Shi'ism. Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, 2012. 29. Mavani, Hamid. (Abbas Ahmadvand, ed.). Crystallization of the Doctrine of Imamate: The Theology of Nasir al-din al-tusi and Allamah Hilli, in Shi i Historiography. I. B. Taurus and ICAS, 2015. 30. Mavani, Hamid. Religious Authority and Political Thought in Twelver Shi ism: From Ali to Post-Khomeini. New York and London: Routledge, 2013. 31. Modarressi, Hossein. Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shi'ite Literature vol.1, 2003. 32. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Hamid Dabashi and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, eds. Expectation of the Millennium: Shi ism in History. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988. 33. Newman, Andrew J. Fayd Al-Kashani and the Rejection of the Clergy/State Alliance: Friday Prayer as Politics in the Safavid Period. The Most Learned of the Shiʿa. 2001.
34. Newman, Andrew J. Minority Reports: Twelver Shi`i Disputation and Authority the Buyid Period. In The Study of Shi'i Islam: History, Theology and Law. I.B. Tauris, 2014. 35. Newman, Andrew J. The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to Ali Al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism. Die Welt Des Islams 33.1, 1993. 36. Newman, Andrew J. Sufism and Anti-Sufism in Safavid Iran: The Authorship of the "Hadiqat Al-Shia" Revisited. Iran 37, 1999. 37. Rizvi, Sajjad. Political Mobilization and the Shi'i Establishment. International Affairs, vol. 86, no. 6, Chatham House, 2010, 1299-1313. 38. Rizvi, Sajjad. Shi ism in Bahrain: Marja'iyya and politics. Orient, vol. 50, no. 3, 2009, 16-24. 39. Saanei, Ayatullah Yusef (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.). Paradigm Shift in Twelver Shi i Legal Theory ( Uṣūl Al-fiqh ). The Muslim World, 2009. 40. Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. The Just Ruler in Shīʻite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. 41. Tabataba i, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husain. (Seyyed Hoseyn Nasr, trans. And ed.). Shi ite Islam. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975. 42. Takim, Liyakat. Ijtihad: A Brief History of Ijtihad in Twelver Shi ism. 43. Takim, Liyakat. The Origins and Evaluations of Hadith Transmitters in Shi`i Biographical Literature.
44. Takim, Liyakat. Shi'ism in America. New York: New York University Press, 2009. For further research and additional readings, please consult the extensive library of Shi`ite sources on line: www.al-islam.org and http://www.noorlib.ir/view/en/default All required books will be assigned for weekly readings, where two students will introduce a book and lead a discussion of it. It is of course assumed that all students will also have read each book in the assigned, and not listed order. This is an important part of your class participation, which will constitute 30% of your final grade. Course Outline: September 17 I - Background A. Islam: Abrahamic legacy B. Abu Talib II - Formative history of the Muslim Ummah A. The Prophet Muhammad and the theocratic community B. The end of theocratic rule and the beginning of the Caliphate C. The normative or rightly guided first four Caliphs III - The beginnings of Shi i history and the Umayyad Caliphate A. Succession of Hassan son of Ali B. Treaty with Muawiyah
Readings: Amir-Moezzi - The Divine Guide in Early Shi ism Crone - God's Caliph Madelung - The Succession to Muhạmmad Momen - An Introduction to Shi i Islam (ch. 2-5) October 8 IV The tragedy of Karbala, and its devotional and ritualistic aspects A. Poetic portrayals of the tragedy B. The ziyarah or spiritual visitation to the Imam s tomb C. Memorial services D. Visual portrayals, the Persian Passion Play (A video of Shi i rituals will be shown) V - The Shia Imams after Karbala A. Ali ibn Husayn, Zayn al- Abidin (son of Husayn) B. Muhammad ibn Ali, al-baqir (son of Ali) C. Ja'far ibn Muhammad, as-sadiq (son of Muhammad) VI - Taqiya (Dissimulation): A tool for survival A. Quranic tradition B. Hadith debates concerning taqiya
C. The Wikala Readings: Abu Mikhnaf - Kitab Maqtal al-husayn Ayoub - Redemptive Suffering (ch. 4-6) Hussain - The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam Kitab al Irshad (Imams 4-6) October 29 VII - Shia sects and the early Shia extremist movements: penitents, avengers and rebellious mawali A. The Kaysaniyyah B. The Khattabiyyah C. Other temporary fringe movements VIII - The Isma`iliyyah A. The rise and pre-fatimid developments B. The Fatimid period C. The Druzes sect D. Post Fatimid developments IX - The Ithna`ashariyyah or Twelver Shia A. The period of the Imams to the end of the Minor Occultation (al-ghaybah alsughra) of the Twelfth Imam B. Beginning of the Greater Occultation (al-ghaybah al-kubra): crisis and consolidation
Readings: Daftary - A Short History of the Ismailis (from pg. 21 to the end) Hussain - The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam ibn Musa al-nawbakhti - Kitab Firaq Al-Shi a Modarressi - Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi ite Islam Sachedina - Islamic Messianism November 19 X Development of the Religious Sciences A. The Qur an and Sunnah in the view of the Shi ah and rise of Shi i hadith: the Four Books and other sources B. Jurisprudence C. Theology D. Philosophy and mysticism XI - Development of Shi i centers of learning A. Hilla B. Baghdad, and Najaf C. Reyy, Qom, Shiraz, and Isfahan Readings: Bayhom-Daou - Shaykh Mufid Newman - The Formative Period of Twelver Shi ism
Schmidtke - The Theology of Al-ʻAllāma Al-Ḥillī December 10 XII - Safavid Iran [1600] to the 20th Century and Pahlavi Era A. Consolidation of Shi ite power under the Safavids and the role of the `Ulama B. Post Safavid developments: the religious establishment and the authority of the supreme Mujtahid or Marja` XIII - Iranian Islamic Revolution, 1979 A. Shi`ism in the twentieth century, before the Revolution B. The Islamic Revolution and after: whither Shi`ism? Readings: Arjomand - The Turban for the Crown Dabashi - Theology of Discontent Khomeini - Islam and Revolution (pg. 27-167) Mavani - Ayatullah Khomeini's Concept of Governance and the Classical Shi i Doctrine of Imamate Nasr - The Shia Revival