Week Two

January 15-17

Muhammad

The Prophet Muhammad and his companions advancing on Mecca,
attended by the angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail.
Siyer-i Nebi 1595.
Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Muzesi, Hazine 1223, folio 298a

•  Read Crone, Baron, and Watt.
•  Read Ochsenwald/Fisher, pp. 18-36,
• Answer one of the following questions - send via email.  Due Sunday January 20.  Please note that next week's answer is also due on January 20.  From now on, the writing assignments will be due the Sunday PRIOR to the week in which we discuss the material.

• Crone , "Rise of Islam," from her Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Study guide for Crone.
• Baron , "Pre-Islamic Period," from his Social and Religious History of the Jews.
• Watt , "Assessment," from his Mohammad, Prophet and Statesman, ;Study Guide for Watt

• An optional reading: Treadgold , "Two Fights for Survival: 610-668."
• Write on one of the following questions:

  1. What was "Watt's theory" of the rise of Islam in Mecca, and what are the main arguments against this theory presented by Crone?
  2. What was the role of trade in Mecca in Muhammad's time, according to Crone?

  3. What does Baron argue to be the Jews' contribution to the new Islamic system in Arabia?

  There is a site at the University of Southern California that is helpful in demonstrating differences in Qur'an translations; when you click on a Surah, it brings up three translations of the Qur'an (by Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, and M. H. Shakir) together line by line.

An interesting discussion of the Qur'an, by a modern Islamic scholar, Tariq Ramadan, who teaches at Oxford University and at Erasmus University, was published in the NYT on Sunday, Reading the Qur'an. You may remember that Professor Ramadan was the scholar who had been invited to teach as a visiting professor at Notre Dame in 2004 but who was denied a visa by our Dept of State as they had determined that he was an Islamic fundamentalist.

Roman Law - "The Institutes" of Justinian: 533 C.E. ----Corpus Iuris Civilis - 529 C.E.;  "Codex Justinianis" - 529 C.E.; "Digest of Pardecis" - 533 C.E.