Islam in India: ISLA 420 (Undergraduate course syllabus) (original) (raw)

Course description: Islam’s legacy in pre-colonial South Asia has never been more in question than it is today. Modern nationalisms in the region have altered, in some cases beyond recognition, the memories of Islam’s millennial legacy in India. This course aims to equip you to authoritatively answer four sets of salient contemporary questions concerning this legacy: what were the beginnings of Muslim political power in India? What did it mean to convert to Islam before English colonialism? What can we accurately say about Muslim social relations with India’s non-Muslim majority during the nearly thousand years of Muslim presence in pre-colonial India? And, given the abiding popular association of South Asian Islam with certain genres of poetry (e.g. ghazal), painting (e.g. miniature) and architecture (e.g. mosque), what have been Islam’s aesthetic legacies in the region?