Two Course Package: The Era of the Companions and The Era of Civilization

SYLLABUS FOR THE ERA OF COMPANIONS

01. Three Narratives of Muslim History

Western-University Narrative: The Companions used and altered the religion of the Prophet to build a religious empire. Dinner-Table Narrative: Muslims have been fighting with each other ever since the Prophet died. Religious Narrative: The Companions were “the best of generations” (Bukhari) whose character inspired people all over the world to embrace Islam. What are the assumptions that lead to these different narratives? Step back, analyze, and integrate the historical methods of the modern university with the historical methods of traditional Muslim scholarship.

02. What is a Caliphate? (Not a Theocracy!)

The Companions unanimously elected Abu Bakr as the first political successor (or “caliph”) of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). His election was both religious and democratic, and that was not a contradiction! Explore the political theory behind the early caliphate, the freedoms enjoyed by its citizens, and how it compares to a modern liberal democracy (and also to a theocracy).

03. The Wars of Apostasy

Abu Bakr's greatest political legacy was his reunification of fiercely independent Bedouin tribes. The wars he fought are known as the “wars of apostasy” but they were rebellions, not wars (learn the political distinction), and Arabian apostasy was restricted to a few tribes. Learn about miraculous victories, ethical conduct in war, and the transformation of ancient Arabia into the first bastion of Islam.

04. The Quran Preserved and its Variant Readings

Variations in Biblical manuscripts are signs of its corruption but variations in the readings of the Quran are signs of its perfect preservation. See why through a careful study of Abu Bakr’s initiative to compile the first Quranic codex and Uthman’s initiative to copy it, disseminate it, and destroy all Quranic manuscripts that weren’t its identical copies. Learn the principles of historical analysis that will clear all religious doubts about the perfect preservation of the Quran.

05. Why Fight Wars? (Why Not Peace?)

The untrained, underequipped, and outnumbered Muslim forces were unstoppable as they won one miraculous victory after another, eradicating the Sassanians and bringing the Byzantines to their knees. But what motivated these conquests? Was it an irrational religiosity that sought to plunge the world into perpetual war? No. Learn how these conquests sowed the seeds of peace, freedom, and international law.

06. Khalid b. al-Walid and the Battle of Yarmouk

Khalid b. al-Walid was the undefeatable general and hero of the early Muslim conquests. In 636, after years of consecutive victories, he crowned his military career by changing the course of history with a decisive victory against a massive Christian force at the Battle of Yarmouk. Shortly afterwards, Umar dismissed him and he never led a battle again. Analyze his dismissal in your midterm.

MIDTERM

Apply the historical methods of the Islamic sciences of legal theory (usul al-fiqh) and historical criticism (mustalah al-hadith) to analyze the reports surrounding Umar’s dismissal of Khalid b. al-Walid. Describe how your analysis differs from the modern analyses of Western historians. Give an evidence-based explanation of why your analysis is more accurate that the conclusions of Western historians.

07. Umar Assumes Command

Abu Bakr died, Umar took command, and the oldest, wealthiest and most powerful civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Persia) forever became the heartlands of the Islamic World. The seeds of this God-given success were sown during the previous two decades. Learn how Umar went from being beaten by his father for neglecting camels to becoming one of the greatest and most successful leaders in human history.

08. The Battle of Qadisiyya and the End of the Sassanian Empire

The heroic battles of Qadisiyya (637) and Nahawand (642) ended the four-centuries of magnificent Sassanian reign forever. Learn about Zoroastrianism, how the Sassanian kings used it to oppress their subjects, and how Islam freed them from the worship of slaves (read, “kings”) to the worship of the Lord of all slaves (read, “the true God”).

09. How Umar Became the Most Powerful Man in History

There are two roads to power: (1) subjugation (this leads to compliance) and (2) good government (this leads to love). Umar chose the latter, because of which ‘Abdullah b. Mas‘ud remarked, “By Allah! Had I known that Umar loved a dog, I would have loved that dog, too.” Learn how Umar won the love of his citizens by instituting the separation of powers, political accountability, fiscal responsibility, good citizenship, and free education.

10. Uthman and the Fitna

The final years of Uthman’s reign were marked by dissension and conflict and culminated in his voluntary assassination (you read that right - he volunteered to be assassinated!). Gather historical evidence and apply the historical methods of traditional Muslim scholarship to identify the political causes of the civil unrest, discern the evidence for the sincerity and uprightness of all of the Companions, and to realize that peace and prosperity are blessings from God that He sometimes withholds from us as a test of our sincerity.

11. War Between Ali and Muawiya

Learn the historical evidence for the facts that (1) Ali loved and supported Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, (2) the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not designate any political successor, (3) Ali’s predecessors were all democratically elected by a consensus of the Companions, and (4) the battles between Ali, Muawiya, and Aisha were not power-struggles, but divisions created by the Khawarij - first sect to emerge in the history of Islam.

12. Peace Between the Companions

Ali was assassinated and succeeded by his son Hasan, who ruled for six months before fulfilling a prophecy of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) that predicted he would “make peace between two great groups of Muslims”. Learn how the beautiful story of the beloved grandson of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is a capstone of one of his greatest miracles - that he left behind a generation of human beings that was more humble, more selfless, and more sincere than any generation that the world had ever seen before.

FINAL

Analyze an account of Islamic history by a leading Western historian, correct its mistakes, and rewrite it using the historical methods of traditional Muslim scholarship.

SYLLABUS FOR THE ERA OF CIVILIZATION

01. Muawiya, Yazid, and Tragedy at Karbala

Reflect with Hamza Karamali on the significance of the strange fact that the son of Abu Sufyan (once the arch-enemy of Islam) should successfully govern a deeply religious Islamic civilization for almost four decades. Then examine the circumstances surrounding the tragic murder of our master Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), and use that to study what scholars have said about the permissibility of cursing Yazid.

02. Did Hajjaj’s Tyranny End Civil War?

The murder of our master Husayn sparked civil war. Abd al-Malik b. Marwan and his notorious governor Hajjaj b. Yusuf imposed their authority with unprecedented harshness and ferocity (not even hesitating to fire at the Ka‘ba with catapults!). Examine how “stability” was restored and explore whether their iron-fisted rule really ended the rebellions or whether it sowed the seeds for the eventual downfall of the Umayyads some decades later.

03. The First Muslim Dynasty (And Why It Wasn’t a Kingdom or an Empire)

‘Abd al-Malik was succeeded as caliph by three of his sons. Examine the institutions of jihad, jizya, and slavery during this time; learn why this dynasty was protected from the injustices that characterized European dynasties; and grasp why dynastic succession in that might have been the best political solution in that historical context.

04. The Second Umar and the Preservation of Hadith

The scrupulous piety of Umar b. Abd al-Aziz proves that beneath the veneer of Umayyad worldliness lay a deeply religious Muslim culture. Peek into that religious culture through the lives and careers of the scholars of hadith, whose unprecedented, painstaking, and public invention of the isnad system is one of the great miracles of Muslim scholarship.

05. Shiism and the Abbasid Revolution

Explore the mysterious and fascinating story of the intrigues, betrayals, and secret societies that culminated in the Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyads. Then imagine the religious and political culture that enabled the revolution and use that to understand the Shiite concepts of the imamate and of the imam’s occultation, and their relation to historical and contemporary politics.

06. Abu Hanifa, Scholars, and the State

Learn why Abu Hanifa’s refusal to be a judge landed him in prison. Then digress to examine the inescapably political role of avowedly apolitical religious scholars and how that created a genuinely democratic and representative government in the cultural context of a genuinely religious society.

MIDTERM

07. Where the Schools of Law Came From (And Why There are Only Four)

Why Islamic law is neither harsh nor cruel can only be appreciated in the context of its historical application in a genuinely religious culture. Learn how it brought peace, prosperity, and happiness as you examine the concepts of ijtihad, taqlid, and the development of an Islamic legal vocabulary during the lifetimes of the four famous Imams (Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafi‘i, and Ahmad b. Hanbal).

08. Harun al-Rashid Led a Religious Government (Not the World of the Thousand and One Nights)

The “Thousand and One Nights”, his legendary “House of Wisdom” (Bayt al-Hikma) which translated the great works of ancient Greece into Arabic, and the political and economic prosperity of the Abbasids during his reign have made Harun al-Rashid a part of Western culture. But he was a religious man who listened to religious scholars, made many pilgrimages, and personally fought against the Byzantines. Reflect with Hamza Karamali on the differences between the two historical narratives and what that means for Muslims today.

09. Early Muslim Sects and the Mutazilite Inquisition

Learn about the historical circumstances that led to the emergence of the early non-political Muslim sects - the anthroporphists, the Jahmiyya, the Murji’ah, the Jabriyya, and the Qadariyya. Then study the Mu‘tazilites, the debate over the createdness of the Quran, the apparent anti-rationalism of some of the traditionalists, and the emergence of the science of rational theology (kalam).

10. A Culture of Spirituality, Science, and Philosophy

Prosperity under the Abbasids led to the rise of science, the pursuit of philosophy, and the founding of the science of Islamic spirituality. Learn about the Islamic culture that gave birth to these disciplines and compare it to the modern culture that spawned the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Reason.

11. Ghazali, the Ismailis, and the Birth of the Madrasa

Divisions in the Abbasid realms led to the emergence of smaller principalities that only gave nominal allegiance to the central caliph, to the rise of a competing Shiite caliphate in Egypt, and to the weakening of religious citizenship. Learn how Nizam al-Mulk invented the state-endowed madrasa to solve this problem and how Ghazali brought intellectual and spiritual unity to the Muslim world.

12. The Mongols and the Sacking of Baghdad

Within the span of a few days, the Mongol Hordes (led by Hulagu) mercilessly massacred one million inhabitants of the most magnificent city on earth. The wealth and pomp of Baghdad were looted, its unrivalled repositories of books were discarded into the Tigris, and the culture, the knowledge, and the civilization of the capital of the Muslim world was utterly eradicated. Explore why this happened with Hamza Karamali.

FINAL

Addendum on the Sciences of the Madrasa

Supplementary lessons on the purpose, content, and historical development of the traditional Islamic sciences and the Muslim scholarly tradition through a reading of “The Madrasa Curriculum in Context” by Hamza Karamali. (https://www.kalamresearch.com/pdf/MadrasaCurriculumMonograph_lowresweb.pdf)

OPTION 1: SINGLE-PAY