Spoilers

I don't expect the new direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to amount to anything, but doubt the timing of this is coincidental:

"Four Israelis were killed on Tuesday night when gunmen opened fire on their car at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, in the West Bank.

"The attack occurred around 7:30 P.M. on Route 60, when shots were fired at a private vehicle near the Bani Naim junction, south of Kiryat Arba. Preliminary reports showed the gunmen approached the vehicle and shot the victims multiple times at point-blank range.

"Hamas' military wing has claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes just a day before the White House effort to re-launch Mideast peace talks."

Kiryat Arba was probably chosen to highlight Israel's most inflammatory settlement.

Lake Nasser

Motalefeh

IWPR has an article uncovering some of the political sinews moving events in Iran away from the Green Movement. It highlights the opposition between the Ahmadinejad administration and a traditional conservative political party called Motalefeh. Here's the economic component:

"Motalefeh also has effective control of the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, the largest charity in the Middle East and also the Islamic Economic Organisation, which comprises 1,200 trusts and quasi-banks that issue loans to the public. Together with the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Motalefeh members hold controlling shares in several companies including the Rezvan industrial corporation, a gas pipeline project in South Pars, and even a software company called Ada-Afzar.

"Nor should one forget the enduring influence of the bazaar traders in every major Iranian city. In addition to actual trading, they handle much of the financing for trade, and have been the dominant force in Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines for the past 30 years."

After reading Keshavarzian's book, I wonder if the author isn't slightly over-stating the bazaar's economic importance, which has declined during the past 30 years, though a word like "much" is fairly vague. The article does tie Motalefeh to the bazaar and the July bazaar strike by saying that the Society of Islamic Guild and Bazaar Associations, which provided the impetus for the strike, is close to Motalefeh, which makes sense given organizational attention the state gave the bazaar during the 1980's and 1990's. On the point about companies, since the IRGC's economic influence is fairly new and an important development under Ahmadinejad, it stands to reason that when the article talks about party members sharing influence with the IRGC, the background is that they used to have a lot more of the influence, but have lost it in part due to a lack of political influence under Ahmadinejad.

There's also this note about what has happened in the bazaar since the strike:

"But the government was not about to give up so easily. Shortly before the month of Ramadan in early August, there was an upsurge in official inspections of the traditional guilds that run the bazaars as well as of individual merchants. In July, 39,000 cases of breaches of trading regulations were brought against them, and hefty fines were imposed for alleged profiteering.

"The government campaign drew a fierce riposte from the guild association’s head, Ahmad Karimi Isfahani, who said these actions were illegal and politically-motivated."

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

The Danger of Humanities

Iran's leadership has determined that some majors are more dangerous to them than others:

"The Iranian government says it will restrict the number of students admitted to humanities programs at universities, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports...

"It follows criticism of humanities studies last year by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He called the humanities a field of study that 'promotes skepticism and doubt in religious principles and beliefs,' and that it was worrying that almost two-thirds of university students in Iran were seeking degrees in the humanities."

Ahh, FOXNews

FOXNews has truly outdone themselves:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

World History I Syllabus

HIS 105-031: World History I
102 Dauphin Humanities Center, MWF 9:00 a.m.
Dr. Brian J. Ulrich

Office: 201 Dauphin Humanities Center, ex. 1736
Office Hours: 10:00-10:50, Noon-12:50 MWF, also by appointment
E-Mail: bjulrich@ship.edu

“For any branch of knowledge to exist, it must be derived from history. From it all wisdom is deduced, all jurisprudence is elicited, all eloquence is learnt. Those who reason by analogy build upon it. Those who have opinions to expound use it for argument. Popular knowledge is derived from it and the precepts of the wise are found in it. Noble and lofty morality is acquired from it and the rules of royal government and war are sought in it. All manner of strange events are found in it; in it, too, all kinds of entertaining stories may be enjoyed. It is a science which can be appreciated by both the educated and the ignorant, savoured by both fool and sage, and much desired comfort to elites and commoners. The superiority of history over all other branches of learning is obvious. The loftiness of its status is recognized by any person of intelligence.”

-al-Masudi, 10th century

Required Texts

Voyages in World History, Vol. I, Valerie Hansen and Kenneth R. Curtis
Pre-Industrial Societies, Patricia Crone
In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale, Amitav Ghosh

Electronic reserves found on Blackboard

World History I is required under the “Required Skills and Competencies” category of the Shippensburg University general education program. This is not based solely on the value of understanding what people did in the past. As we will see, historians reconstruct the past on the basis of many types of evidence, evidence that must be considered carefully. This root skill of considering evidence has applications in many professional fields and in forming considered opinions as a member of society. Historians write our conclusions in the form of reasoned arguments about what we think happened. Studying these will help you to evaluate arguments in many fields, and ultimately to make your own. When historians make these arguments, they refer to their evidence with particular forms which we will study. You may never use these specific forms after this class, but the habit of following a specified professional form is something you will need to have for many fields.

As noted in the “General Education” section of the undergraduate catalog, this course is also designed to ensure that students have a global perspective as they proceed with their college education, and for that matter the rest of their lives. Perhaps the most important aspect to this course here at Shippensburg, this “global competence” will help you not only make informed decisions about the world, but may come in handy in your careers and personal lives when you least expect it. To take just one example, a friend who works in a hospital in Minnesota found herself wishing she knew a lot more about the culture of Somalia when a number of Somali refugees were settled in her area and started coming in for treatment. World history is an excellent field in which to begin developing a global disposition, as not only do we learn about different cultures, but we’ll see how they came to be the way they are, which in my experience, makes people more respectful and understanding of the differences.

Finally, I recently conducted an informal survey of lots of friends and former students to find out what they valued about college history courses now that they are in the working world. In addition to reading and writing skills and, in the case of world history, the global perspective, several mentioned that history classes are where they learned to organize knowledge. This is in part a reference to the fact that history is often the first place students regularly practice reading for main ideas, but also the fact that history often comes across as a mass of random information that starts to make sense only if you learn to start filtering it by themes, questions and patterns.

During the semester, we will develop several major themes:

1.) Empire – Before modern times, the most common ideal for political organization was the empire. This involved more than just conquering territory, which is what we often think of. Empires also unified large areas with a common culture, and claimed to represent a universal ideal, such as a set of religious beliefs. In addition to being a key aspect of understanding the past, understanding the various forms of empires can lead to interesting discussions about the world today. After all, the United States claims to represent ideals of democracy and capitalism, in the name of which it frequently intervenes in other countries, and people throughout the world adopt aspects of American culture. Does this mean the United States is something like a new empire?

2.) Religion – Religion is, always has been, and probably always will be crucial to individuals and an important part of the societies in which they live. Almost all world religions began before 1500, and even though they continue to change and develop, we will learn a lot of basics in this course, not only about the core beliefs of different religions, but how they are often intimately related to each other in their origins and influences.

3.) Contact across Cultures – Your main textbook has this as one of its major themes, and we will also explore it, as hinted at above. This will involve discussions about the ways cultures have influenced each other, such as the spread of ideas along trade routes and the frequent role of gender relations in mixed cultural settings. Also, given all the cultural mixing that has occurred across history, what do we really mean today when we think of the world in terms of an “us” and a bunch of different “thems?”

4.) The Historian’s Craft – History shapes out perceptions of who we are and how we fit into the world and, as al-Masudi notes in the above quote, is the source of many models we refer to in different areas of life. However, how do we know what we know about the past? During this course, we will consider popular perceptions of history, as well as how historians work. We will also examine primary sources for ourselves, either on-line or in Voyages, which open an often exciting window into different worlds. A key objective is to get you to see knowledge as something produced rather than simply handed down.

With these themes as our focus, assignments will ensure you develop a foundational understanding of world history to 1500, an ability to write clearly and think critically about world history to 1500, and an ability to analyze historical events and trends effectively. There will be three exams during the course of the semester, each divided into an ID and an essay portion. The final exam will have a cumulative component related to the major themes explained above. There will also be an essay due November 22 focused on the theme “World History in Today’s World.” Attendance and participation are mandatory. Students are allowed to miss three classes. After that, your total participation grade will be lowered by 5% for each additional absence. Late papers will be accepted, but with a penalty usually amounting to one full letter grade per class period late. Late take-home exams are acceptable only under extraordinary circumstances. Laptops are permitted in class, but if I notice you doing something not related to the course, that will hurt your participation grade, as well.

In addition, I will occasionally give short paragraph writing assignments on reading, which will occasionally be collected. The purpose of this is both to make sure that everyone is doing the reading, and that people are understanding what they read and how it relates to the major concepts of the course. I will also give the occasional reading quiz. In the past, students have found my reading quizzes comically easy.

Syllabus Changes:

Occasionally, I find I want to make changes to the syllabus. These are usually substitutions of different readings, and will not result in increased work or changes in the dates of exams and major assignments. It is your responsibility as a student to be familiar with any such changes to the syllabus, issued for whatever reason, as announced both in class and over e-mail.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism, simply put, is intellectual theft. If you use words or ideas from someone else in an academic or professional setting, and do not give them proper credit, you have stolen from them. This is true even if the work has been posted in a public forum, such as a web site. It includes:

1.) Outright plagiarism – direct copying of a source, passing off the author’s words and ideas as one’s own without crediting the source
2.) Mosaic plagiarism – lifting words or phrases from the original source, again without crediting that source
3.) Echo plagiarism – no words are stolen, but ideas are lifted, again without crediting the source

Because of all this, plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty (cheating) will not be tolerated and handled according to Shippensburg procedures. Specific guidelines for expected citation policies will be announced with each assignment. The easiest way to avoid plagiarizing is always to cite as much as possible. Citing too much is almost impossible to do. Citing too little could lead to failing an assignment, the course as a whole, or even expulsion from the university. In order to prevent plagiarism, I ask that all assignments be submitted via turnitin.com.

Frankly, you should want to cite things even if it weren’t for the consequences of plagiarism. The flip side of plagiarism is generosity, acknowledging the debt you have to the work of others. Even when professional historians have an idea of their own, they will often include a footnote mentioning that they got the idea after talking to a colleague, or even from discussion in a class they were teaching. Sometimes when they cite a book or article, they will mention that it was recommended to them by a friend, whom they name. You may not know the people who created the sources you will cite here at Shippensburg, but acknowledging things others have done to help you is a good habit to get into for life, and proper citation is a good start.

(Note: I am indebted to Professor Betty Dessants for her description of the types of plagiarism.)

Grading:

Part I Exam: 15%
Part II Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 25%
November 22 Essay: 15%
Quizzes and Short Assignments: 15%
Participation: 10%

Disability Accomodation:

If you feel you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, you should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs at least 72 hours prior to the activity which requires the accommodation. If you have not already done so, you must contact the Office of Disability Services. This office is responsible for determining reasonable and appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities on a case-by-case basis, and more generally, for ensuring that members of the community with disabilities have access to Shippensburg’s programs and services. They also assist students in identifying and managing the factors that may interfere with learning and in developing strategies to enhance learning. I cannot approve an accommodation without you registering.

Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments

(Readings with a full citation are found on Desire2Learn)

August 30 – Course Intro
Part I – Ancient Origins
September 1 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 21-5; Crone, pp. 1-10; James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History, 2nd Ed., (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 17-23. [Agricultural Revolution]
September 3 – Crone, pp. 13-34 [complex society]

September 6 – LABOR DAY
September 8 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 28-38; Crone, pp. 35-46 [basis of states, Mesopotamia]
September 10 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 38-51, 63-5; Crone, pp. 46-57 [state functions, Egypt and Indus Valley]

September 13 – Crone, pp. 58-80 [politics]
September 15 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 66-71; Mary Boyce, “Zoroaster and his teaching,” Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, (London: Routledge, 1986), pp. 17-29. [Indo-Europeans, religion]
September 17 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 51-7, 150-1; Marc van de Mieroop, “The Persian Empire,” A History of the Ancient Near East, (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 267-80 [Judaism, religious interactions, Achaemenid Empire]

September 20 – Crone, pp. 81-98; Hansen and Curtis, pp. 154-5 [culture]
September 22 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 71-86; “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law;” Selection from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [South Asian religious developments, Mauryan Empire]
September 24 –Hansen and Curtis, pp. 88-112 [ideas from first unit in relation to China]

September 27 – Selections from the Analects of Confucius and the Tao-Te Ching [Chinese spiritual thought]
September 29 – Crone, 99-122 [social organization]
October 1 – Exam ID Section

October 4 – Essay Exam – Ancient Origins

Part II – Eurasian Powers and Universalist Religions
October 6 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 157-69 [Greek basics]
October 8 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 169-71, 174-92 [Rome and Persia]

October 11 – FALL BREAK
October 13 – Joseph H. Lynch, “The Jewish Context of the Jesus Movement,” Early Christianity: A Brief History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 13-23; N.T. Wright, “The Praxis of a Prophet,” Jesus and the Victory of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), pp. 150-55, 160-8 [Jesus, historiographical movements]
October 15 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 199-204; 271-6; Reader, 228-31; Jas Elsner, “Christian Triumph: A New Religion as State Cult: Sanctity, relics, and Christianization,” Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 230-5; Procopius on Ethiopia (Link) [Late Antiquity]

October 18 – Ghosh, 13-19, 32-39, 54-60, 80-95, 95-105 [Historical projects]
October 20 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 241-50; Qur’an, Surahs 1, 2 [Islam]
October 22 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 238-40, 250-65; Forty Hadith [Islamic empire, medieval monotheistic traditionalism, Islamic learning]

October 25 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 208-22 [South Asian kingdoms, Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism]
October 27 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 222-35 [Sui/Tang imperial system, Chinese Buddhism]
October 29 – Ghosh, pp. 153-162, 174-179, 226-230, Selections from Chinese poetry [issues in social history]

November 1 – Ghosh, pp. 241-250, 255-263, 266-269 [medieval trade, economics, and culture]
November 3 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 319-25; Ghosh, 275-288, 299-305, 313-317, 324-328 [al-Hind]
November 5 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 300-15 [Africa]

November 8 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 328-55 [Song China and East Asia]
November 10 – Exam ID Section
November 12 – Essay Exam – Eurasian Powers and Universalist Religions

Part III – New Powers, New Connections
November 15 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 276-98 [Europe from 400-1000]
November 17 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 356-74 [High Medieval European Civilization]
November 19 - Hansen and Curtis, pp. 386-417 [Mongols and their successor states]

November 22 – Ghosh, pp. 196-210, 329-342 [history in today’s world] [Essay due]
November 24 – THANKSGIVING BREAK
November 26 – THANKSGIVING BREAK

November 29 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 114-31, 420-4 [Pre-Columbian Meso-America]
December 1 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 131- 5, 424-431 [Pre-Columbian Andes]
December 3 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 374-83, 418-421; Daniel J. Boorstin, “The Enterprise of the Indies,” The Discoverers, (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), pp. 224-31. [Expansion of Europe]

December 6 – Hansen and Curtis, pp. 431-49 [Conquest of Americas]
December 8 – Kathleen Deagan, “Dynamics of Imperial Adjustment in Spanish America: Ideology and Social Integration,” Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History, eds. Susan Alcock, Terence D’Altroy, Kathleen Morrison, Carla Sinopoli,(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 179-194 [Spanish imperialism in Americas]
December 10 – Exam Review

Final exam scheduled by university later in the semester

Censoring the Nakba

Israel's Ministry of Education is ordering teachers not to attend a workshop that promotes including the facts of Palestinian dispossession in classes:

"Government officials warned Israeli teachers last week not to cooperate with a civic group that seeks to educate Israelis about how the Palestinians view the loss of their homeland and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

"Israel’s education ministry issued the advisory after Zochrot – a Jewish group that seeks to raise awareness among Israeli Jews of the events of 1948, referred to as the 'nakba' by Palestinians – organised a workshop for primary school teachers...

"The warning is the latest move by the education ministry, headed by Gideon Saar, a member of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, to use school curricula to advance a more strident Zionist agenda.

"In March, for instance, the ministry banned Israeli schools from distributing a booklet for children about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Critics had objected to parts of the declaration that refer to freedom of religion and protection of asylum-seekers."

As you can gather from this short excerpt, the Israeli government has a great amount of power over Israeli society, power which is used to promote the educational agenda favored by the current government. Under Netanyahu, that means attempting to indoctrinate students with right-wing Israeli nationalism.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

El Baradei's Boycott Campaign

Muhammad El Baradei is urging all groups in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood, to boycott November's parliamentary elections:

"Mr ElBaradei, 68, who many see as a viable candidate for president in 2011, has been urging Egyptians to boycott the November elections unless the constitution is amended to restore local judicial supervision over elections. He also wants international monitors to observe elections and Egyptians living abroad to be able to vote.

"He believes engaging in elections under current laws would be giving the regime a legitimacy that he says it is desperate for but does not deserve.

"Mr ElBaradei’s National Association for Change (NAC) as well as the Muslim Brotherhood have been collecting signatures for a reform campaign. They have a joint website that says they have gathered 675,000 signatures so far.

"The petition lists seven demands, including allowing independents to run for president and lifting the country’s emergency laws, which critics say stifle dissent.

"Mr ElBaradei, a Nobel prizewinner and the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he believes that the regime cannot ignore those demands if at least one million Egyptians sign the petition for reform."

Saudi Fatwa Limitations

In a significant assertion of royal power over the ulama, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is restricting who can issues religious rulings:

"King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Thursday issued a decree stating that only senior clerics are permitted to issue fatwas or Islamic religious edicts, the official SPA news agency said.

"It cited the text of the decree as saying that for the time being, only members of the Council of Senior Ulema (scholars) will be allowed to issue fatwas...

"In the decree, the Saudi monarch also asks the grand mufti, who heads the council, to submit a list of others who are qualified to issue fatwas."

One broader context for this is controlling extremists at lower levels, but the crown and the ulama have been in a battle over authority for a long time now.

Hizbullah's Tech

Hizbullah's accusations that Israel engineered the assassination of former Lebanese prime miniser Rafiq Hariri are, of course, ridiculous, but Nasrallah's speech yesterday did contain something noteworthy:

"The most significant and surprising piece of evidence came in the form of footage obtained from Israeli unmanned surveillance drones. Nasrallah revealed that Hizbullah had acquired the technical ability, some time in the early 1990s, to tap into the direct video feeds that passed from the many reconnaissance drones circulating in Lebanon's skies to the Israeli military command. What kind of qualitative edge did this breakthrough afford the party, and what implications would it have upon the five-year-long investigation into Hariri's murder?

"This technological leap forward, said Nasrallah, enabled the party to study the areas under Israeli surveillance, which in some cases provided valuable counter-espionage information. On one such occasion in 1996, Hizbullah used this intelligence to lay an ambush at a spot they believed would be the scene of a future operation. Several months later, they were proven right when Israeli naval commandoes landed off the coast of Lebanon and proceeded precisely to that spot, near the village of Ansariyya, where a bloody firefight ensued."

Nasrallah's speech not only gave its supporters something to argue about the Hariri assassination, but further highlighted its position as the most capable and successful anti-Israel group within the Arab world.

History of Shi'ism

HIS 492: History of Shi’ism
Tuesdays, 6:30 – 9:15 p.m.
Dr. Brian Ulrich

Office: 201 Dauphin Humanities Center, ex. 1736
Office Hours: MWF 10:00 – 10:50, 12:00-12:50, also by appointment
E-Mail: bjulrich@ship.edu

Required Books

The Shi’ites: A Short History, Heinz Halm
A Short History of the Isma’ilis: Traditions of a Muslim Community, Farhad Daftary
The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, Roy Mottahedeh
Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi’ite Islam, Juan Cole
The Shi’is of Iraq, Yitzhak Nakash
The Shi’a Revival, Vali Nasr

Electronic reserves found on Blackboard

Course description

In this class, we will study the history of Shi’ite Islam from its origins to the present day, with some concentration on the Middle East. One major theme will be the way religion is interwoven with social, cultural, economic, political, and other dimensions of life, and thus varies dramatically across time and space. This is linked to the continuous dynamism and fluidity of the Shi’ite tradition, a view of religious history which can be extended well beyond Shi’ism or Islam.

In addition to class participation, evaluation will involve four 2-3 page “short papers” as noted on the syllabus, a quiz over Islamic terms, a 4-page book review on a relevant scholarly book, a 16-page research paper on a topic of your choosing, a short presentation over that topic, and a light final exam. Details of these assignments are forthcoming. Attendance is required, and for each absence over one you will lose 15% off of your participation grade. Participation is not limited to attendance. Late assignments will be penalized on the grade for that assignment, as will failure to meet a deadline for the research paper topic or abstract.

If you feel you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, you should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs at least 72 hours prior to the activity which requires the accommodation. If you have not already done so, you must contact the Office of Disability Services. This office is responsible for determining reasonable and appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities on a case-by-case basis, and more generally, for ensuring that members of the community with disabilities have access to Shippensburg’s programs and services. They also assist students in identifying and managing the factors that may interfere with learning and in developing strategies to enhance learning. I cannot approve an accommodation without you registering.

Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated and handled according to Shippensburg procedures. Any text taken from another source in an assignment must be noted with quotation marks and the original source indicated. In the research paper, all information, regardless of whether exact words are used, must be cited via footnotes.

Grading:

Participation – 20%
Terms quiz – 5%
Short Papers – 20%
Book review – 10%
Research paper – 27%
Research presentation – 8%
Final Exam – 10%

Schedule of Readings and Major Assignments

August 31: Course Intro, Early Islam

September 7: The Beginnings of Shi’ism

Halm, 1-85
Nasr, 17-61
Jonathan Berkey, “The Beginnings of Sectarianism” and “Shi’ism” The Formation of Islam, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 83-90, 130-140
Tabari, trans. I.K.A. Howard, pp. 65-90

September 14: Shi’ism in the High Middle Period

Islamic terms quiz
Halm, 87-106
Nasr, 63-80
Daftary, 1-62
S.H.M. Jafri, “The Doctrine of the Imamate,” Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam, (New York: Longman,1979), pp. 289-316

September 21 – The Isma’ilis

Short paper due
Daftary, 63-216

September 28: Safavid and Post-Safavid Shi’ism

Halm, 107-78
Jean Calmard, “Shi’i Rituals and and Power II. The Consolidation of Safavid Shi’ism: Folklore and Popular Religion,” Safavid Persia, ed. Charles Melville, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 139-71
Ruth Roded, “Shi’i Martyrology: The Death of Fatima, Daughter of the Prophet,” Women in Islam and the Middle East: A Reader, 2nd Edition, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 58-73

October 5: Modern Iran I

Mottahedeh, pp. 1-186 (short paper due)

October 12 – FALL BREAK

October 19: Modern Iran II

Book review due
Mottahedeh, finish book

October 26: Shi’ism in International Context I

Cole, pp. 1-122

November 2: Shi’ism in International Context II

Short paper due
Cole, finish book
Liyakat Nathani Takim, “The American Shi’i Community: Ethnicity and Identity,” Shi’ism in America, (New York: New York University Press, 2009), pp. 49-96
Augustus Richard Norton, “Shi’ism and Social Protest in Lebanon,” Shi’ism and Social Protest, ed. Juan R.I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 156-78

November 9: Modern Iraq I

Nakash, 1-140

November 16: Modern Iraq II

Short paper due
Nakash, finish book

November 23: Contemporary Issues

Nasr (entire book)

November 30: Presentation of Student Research

Research reading only

December 7: Presentations of Student Research

Research paper due

Final Exam: Scheduled by university later in the semester

A Synagogue in Beirut

From an Andrew Sullivan reader:

"Three years ago, I was studying in Israel and took a trip to Beirut to see the city for myself. There I encountered the Magen Avraham Synogogue in Wadi Abu Jamil, a neighborhood that used to be the Jewish Quarter in Beirut. The synagogue was dilapidated and decrepit...

"Recently, with Hezbollah approval, what remains of the Lebanese Jewish community and several outside sources have begun a restoration project...If even Hezbollah allows a synagogue to be built in Beirut, maybe Gingrich should lay off the mosque in lower Manhattan. Surely that's not too high a standard."

October 23

Bahrain has announced the date of its parliamentary elections:

"Bahrain on Sunday said that it would hold its third parliamentary and municipal elections on October 23.

"The announcement was made by King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa as he chaired the meeting of the cabinet.

"The first elections were held in 2002 following a three-decade constitutional hiatus and the second nation-wide polls were organised in 2006."

Cordoba House

I haven't agreed much with Jeffrey Goldberg lately, but on the Cordoba House, he has been excellent:

"The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda, no less than Rudolph Giuliani and the Anti-Defamation League are enemies of al Qaeda. Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels."

Radical militant Islamist thought isn't fully united on these issues, and recruitment propaganda tends to cast a broad net, but the historically dominant strain has argued that most of the Islamic world has slipped into a state of unbelief and is suffering because of it, and fixing that by enforcing the sort of harsh religious views found in Wahhabism and similar movements is their primary goal. The United States gets involved because we are the "Far Enemy" whose cultural, economic, political, and military policies interfere with that project of internal conversion.

Here's another Goldberg post on the subject.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Emirati Teens

It may come as no surprise that Emirati teenagers are spoiled:

"A report released in May by the Dubai-based market research firm AMRB and its international counterpart TRU found that UAE teenagers spent more than triple the global average.

"On average, 12- to 19-year-olds here spent US$71 (Dh260) a week compared with an international average of $21. The only teenagers in the world who spent as much were Norwegians...

"It found that UAE teenagers were much like those anywhere else – they spent a lot of time online visiting websites such as Facebook and blogs. Celebrity culture and music were also a major pastime. But spending set them apart from teenagers elsewhere in the world...

"Clothing was one of the highest expenditures...

"'Although they have to follow their culture by wearing abayas and ensuring that there is not much exposure, beneath those abayas, however, they are wearing the latest brands, Mr Choudhury said.

"Emirati teenagers were also less likely to earn their spending money themselves and were less likely to save. While Egyptian teenagers spent all of their $6 allowance, teenagers in India saved a third of the $3 that their parents gave them.

"'What we saw from our study is that parents are the key source of income for the teenagers here,' Mr Choudhury said. 'About 90 per cent here get their money from their family compared to 79 per cent globally.'"

Erie, Pennsylvania

This is what I'm assuming is the industrial area of Erie, Pennsylvania as seen from Presque Isle State Park.