History of Islam To understand the history of Islam provides the indispensable basis to understand all aspects of Islam and its culture. Themes of special interest are: •
Historiography of early Islam •
History of the Quran •
Historicity of Muhammad •
Early Muslim conquests Textual Studies •
Quranic studies •
Hadith studies •
Fiqh studies
Gender Textual Studies The history of women and gender in Islamic studies experienced a surge of scholarly research during the early 1990's. This wave of scholarship was influenced by the growing presence of politically and religiously active women scholars with Muslim and Arab backgrounds. Additionally, there was a notable increase in the utilization of gender studies methodologies within the traditionally conservative realms of Islamic history and law. Works such as Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam (1992), Fatima Mernissi’s The Veil and the Male Elite (first published in English in 1991, translated from a 1987 French original), and Fedwa Malti-Douglas’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Word: Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing (1991) surveyed large swathes of Islamic history and thought, suggesting structural connections between gendered religious discourses and the social and political roles and rights of women over time. •
Islamic eschatology Mysticism Sufism (
taṣawwuf) is a
mystic tradition of Islam based on the pursuit of spiritual truth as it is gradually revealed to the heart and mind of the Sufi (one who practices Sufism).According to Renard (2021) quoted by Green the meaning of
Sufism is “a strong method of Muslim’s knowledge and practice bringing proximity to or meditation with God and believed that it came from Prophet Muhammad from generation to generation who followed him” (P.8). The etymological term
Suf has mysticism to the educational notion of asceticism. The ascetics and mystics have different and separate roles in each setting, and everyone needs to search the context of a given Sufi’s own time for reasons as to why he/she was known as a Sufi. Sufism is not that, they do not follow the Islam properly it’s just that they spend more time with God. It is an individual way of studying. It might also be referred to as
Islamic mysticism. While other branches of Islam generally focus on
exoteric aspects of religion, Sufism is mainly focused on the direct perception of
truth or
God through mystic practices based on divine love. Sufism embodies a number of
cultures, philosophies, central teachings and bodies of
esoteric knowledge.
Kalam Kalām emerged as a discipline in response to political disputes among Muslims, and then later in response to the impact of Hellenistic philosophy and the expansion of the Islamic Empire into territories previously dominated and occupied by the Sassanian and Byzantine Empires. Key distinctions include those between
fiqh,
hadith and
ijtihad.
Philosophy Islamic studies scholars also deal with the long and rich tradition of philosophy as developed by
Muslim philosophers. It is divided in fields like: •
Early Islamic philosophy •
Avicennism •
Averroism •
Islamic philosophy •
Modern Islamic philosophy •
Sufi philosophy •
Transcendent theosophy •
List of Muslim philosophers •
Illuminationist philosophy •
Islamic ethics •
Sufi metaphysics Sciences Islamic studies scholars are also active in the
history and
philosophy of science. Significant progress in science was made in the Muslim world during the
Middle Ages, especially during the
Islamic Golden Age, which is considered a major period in the history of science. •
Timeline of Islamic science and engineering •
Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam •
Astronomy in medieval Islam •
Islamic astrology •
Inventions in medieval Islam •
Mathematics in medieval Islam •
Medicine in medieval Islam •
Ophthalmology in medieval Islam •
Physics in medieval Islam •
Psychology in medieval Islam Scholars also study the relationship between
Islam and science, for example in the application of
Islamic ethics to scientific practice. •
Qur'an and science •
Islamic creationism Literature institute in
Bangladesh has a large stock of Islamic literature in Arabic, Bengali, Persian and Urdu. •
Arabic literature •
Arabic epic literature •
Islamic poetry •
Arabic poetry •
Persian literature •
Urdu literature This field includes the study of
modern and
classical Arabic and the literature written in those languages. It also often includes other modern, classic or ancient languages of the
Middle East and other areas that are or have been part of, or influenced by, Islamic culture, such as
Hebrew,
Turkish,
Persian,
Urdu,
Azerbaijanian and
Uzbek.
Architecture Islamic architecture is the entire range of architecture that has evolved within
Muslim culture in the course of the
history of Islam. Hence the term encompasses religious buildings as well as secular ones, historic as well as modern expressions and the production of all places that have come under the varying levels of Islamic influence.
Art •
Islamic calligraphy •
Islamic pottery •
Muslim music Islamic visual
art has, throughout history, been mainly abstract and decorative, portraying geometric, floral,
Arabesque, and
calligraphic designs. Unlike the strong tradition of portraying the human figure in
Christian art, Islamic art is typically distinguished as not including depictions of human beings. The lack of
portraiture is due to the fact that early Islam forbade the painting of human beings, especially
the Prophet, as Muslims believe this tempts followers of the Prophet to
idolatry. This prohibition against human beings or icons is called
aniconism. Despite such a prohibition, depictions of human beings do occur in Islamic art, such as that of the
Mughals, demonstrating a strong diversity in popular interpretation over the pre-modern period. Increased contact with the
Western civilization may also have contributed to human depictions in Islamic art in modern times.
Comparative religion Islamic
comparative religion is the study of the relationship between Islam and other religions. •
Islam and Christianity •
Islam and Jainism •
Islam and Judaism •
Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400) Economics Islamic economics studies how
economics may be brought in accordance with
Islamic law. •
Islamic banking •
Islamic economics in the world Psychology •
Psychology in medieval Islam •
Sufi psychology Islam and modernity One field of study deals with how Islam reacts on the contact with Western modernity. •
Al-Nahda •
Islam and modernity •
Liberal and progressive Muslim movements == Journals ==