Answer 2 of the following: Use all course material in your answers (lectures, visuals, readings, and observations in discussion). In each answer demonstrate your familiarity with material with specific examples.
1. Describe the Ottoman structures for incorporating different ethnic and religious communities, with specific examples. Why did this structure begin to disintegrate in the 19th century?
2. How has the history of early Islam (Muhammad’s life and the first century AH) been interpreted and re-interpreted by subsequent generations and groups of Muslims? for what purposes? How has it been interpreted and re-interpreted by Christians, Europeans and the West in general?
3. In what different ways has Western imperialism been manifested in the Muslim societies of the Middle East in the last two centuries, and how have Muslim communities responded to the impacts? Give specific examples.
4. Do the six “arrows” of Ataturk’s policies (republicanism, secularism, populism, nationalism, statism, and revolutionism) represent a good summary of the Western impact of the last two centuries in the Middle East generally? are they good sub-categories of the catch-all phrase of “modernization”? Elaborate.