SMNR: Islamic Law and Political Violence

• Semester: Spring 2018
• Course ID: 397S
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 29070

Description

This seminar examines theories and approaches to the study of political violence. It starts with a survey of the juristic discussions on legitimate and illegitimate violence. It shows how Muslim jurists, by the 11th century, had developed a sophisticated discourse on the proper limits on the conduct of warfare, political violence, and terrorism. This seminar would then show how these juristic discourses are no longer part of the normative categories of contemporary Muslim societies. The seminar would shift attention to the rise of Islamism as a response to the failure of the nationalist projects of the post-colonial era in Muslim majority countries. The seminar would address specific case studies of Islamist political violence in local and global contexts. Some of central questions that we would examine throughout the course include: How does violence differ from other types of political action? What are the reasons of Islamist political violence?