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Islamic Theological Traditions

Module description

How did and do Muslims speak about God, understand their faith, use reason and scripture to make sense of what it means to be a Muslim? This module assumes that you have a basic knowledge of Islam and will normally have done the Introduction to Islam module. It would be useful but not essential to know something about the study of theology as applied to other religious traditions as well and hence should appeal to students in theology and other social sciences as well. The module begins by asking what we mean by theology in Islam and assumes that we cannot answer that question with a simple singular answers – hence the insistence on ‘theological traditions’. We will not assume that a particular theological approach is normative but instead adopt a problem based approach – how did different Muslim thinkers understand the nature of the Qur’an, the role of the prophet, the derivation of moral values, miracles, leadership and the afterlife? The primary expectation is for you to read and reflect, and then express your understanding of these key issues and questions.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module is designed to provide through the study of translated texts an in-depth understanding of the main scholastic disciplines of Islam relating to theology, namely usul al-din, usul al-fiqh and systematic theology (kalam). From the starting-point of an exploration of the competing theories for the early development of Islamic scholarship, the history of the main genres of these disciplines will then be considered. Representative texts of these genres in translation, which are considered as key works in their own traditions, will be read and analysed in class, in order to gain a 'first-hand' experience of their form and content, and thus to gain an insight into the milieux which produced them, the epistemological basis of the disciplines, the structure of arguments and the main foci of debates in changing historical settings.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand the characteristics of the main genres of Islamic scholarship, the prominent authors, the topics with which their works are concerned, and the competing academic approaches to interpreting them.
• 2. analyse and contextualise primary texts in translation from the different genres of theological production in Islam

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Understand a religious and intellectual culture through the genres of its literary output,.
• 4. Compare this first-hand exposure to the academic descriptions in recent scholarship, in order to identify their relevant strengths and shortcomings.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Demonstrate transferable skills in analysis and interpretation, as well as in evaluating arguments
• 6. assess every approach from its own methodological basis and assumptions
• 7. Demonstrate the ability to find, digest, select and organise material to produce a coherent and reasoned argument in time to meet deadlines.
• 8. demonstrate the ability to work independently, within a limited time frame, and without access to external sources, to complete a specified task.

Syllabus plan

Muslim revelation and debates on authenticity: Qur'an and sunna

Introduction to theological schools

Arguing about God and its validity
Who is a believer? Community, creeds and heresy
Scholarly consensus
The imamate
Prophecy and miracles
Moral agency and moral value
Mystical theology

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Norman Calder, Jawid Mojaddedi & Andrew Rippin, Classical Islam: sources of religious literature (London/New York 2001), esp. Chs 5-7.

Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trs. A. and R. Hamori (Princeton, 1980)

William Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds: a Selection (Edinburgh, 1994)

Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology (Edinburgh, 1997)

Tilman Nagel, The History of Islamic Theology (Princeton, 2000)

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford, 2016)

The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge, 2008)

Key words search

Islamic, Theological, Traditions, Muslim revelation, Mystical theology, Qur'an, sunna