Please select one of many following subjects in your remaining essay. I anticipate that one can find most of your data within the assignments within the models for this course – the books, the modules and their hyperlinks and on-line readings. You could nicely have written about one or one other facet of those subjects for the models by the point you’re employed on this remaining mission – and you might be at liberty to reuse concepts that you’ve got already used on this course. It there’s something along with this data that you simply want to embrace in your essay, and it can’t be discovered within the assignments, you need to be at liberty to look elsewhere. For some other sources used, I need you to quote them fastidiously in order that I might discover the placement of your data. As I’ve stated earlier within the course, although, a lot of the data on the web, and certainly in Wikipedia in its numerous language variations, is doubtlessly unreliable, since there isn’t any actual “vetting” of that data by students. I might anticipate that the ultimate essay ought to be a number of instances’ longer than the weekly assignments have been – it’s value many extra factors!
1. A comparability of a number of the Islamic states that we’ve studied this semester (Umayyad, Abbasid, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal empires) with that of the earliest Islamic “state”, that in Medina (begun by Muhammad, and continued and expanded by the “rightly-guided” Caliphs). Please select three states to check with the Medinan state: both Umayyad or Abbasid, after which 2 of Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal. Please remember that that first state in Medina is often thought of by Muslim leaders even at this time (together with radical Islamists like ISIS because the “mannequin” state, the equal of the state of the “founding fathers” of Islam. Fairly than giving solely a basic comparability, I need you to concentrate on 2 or three elements of these states – for instance, economic system, political system, remedy of members of different religions, rural and concrete society. These are simply meant to be examples.
2. A dialogue of the origins of reform and secularism within the Center East – trying on the readings for the final two models to start with, but additionally earlier actions and governmental insurance policies. Did the rulers of the three nice 16th and 17th century Islamic empires additionally reform their regimes (that’s, give new type to political and ideological techniques that they inherited from the sooner states)? Some have argued that the Ottomans, a minimum of from the time of Suleyman the Magnificant, and maybe earlier, had been contantly reforming, modernizing their techniques – particularly within the financial realm. For the Mughals, I believe, some argue that they had been returning to the views of Muhammad and the “Rightly-Guided Caliphs” on the remedy of non-Muslims – given the truth that they confronted the identical challenges – ruling as a Muslim minority within the midst of a big majority non-Muslim inhabitants. These are simply examples. Please discover your personal.
three. An evaluation of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals that may have been made by Muhammad and/or the “Rightly-Guided Caliphs” – after all this requires some creativeness in your half. Keep in mind that Muhammad himself had not made preparations for a switch of authority on his loss of life – and doubtless didn’t have any thought of “Caliphs”. But these of you who’ve paid shut consideration to the small print of Islamic “terrorism”, significantly of Osama bin Laden and his motion, will keep in mind that Osama considered the Ottoman caliphate (which was lastly shut down by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1924 within the strategy of his creation of the Turkish Republic) because the reliable type of authorities for Muslims – and promised to reestablish that common Islamic authorities if given the prospect. And the unconventional Islamists at this time in Syria and Iraq, ISIS, declare to be establishing a brand new Caliphate to incorporate all Muslims all through the world.