phd thesis islamic studies

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PhD in Islam

This field seeks to train specialists in Islamic Studies. The program is designed to prepare students to teach and do research in the history, cultures, languages and literatures, doctrines and ritual practices, as well as the social and political articulations of Islam. A particular emphasis is paid to fostering an appreciation of the great diversity of the Islamic tradition, the numerous manifestations of Islamic religiosity and their interactions with other religious traditions, historically and in the contemporary world.

Aside from courses offered in the Department of Religion on these subjects, students may take a wide array of courses in other departments including MESAAS, Anthropology, History, and Art History.  In addition to the plentiful resources available at Columbia and Barnard, students are encouraged to take advantage of the tri-state consortium at CUNY, NYU, Princeton, and Yale. 

Students are required to take at least four graduate seminars pertaining to Islamic studies, in addition to the course work required by the department. Because students enter upon the study of Islam with different interests and backgrounds, no one trajectory or timetable can be specified for all graduate students in the field. The general pattern, however, is as follows:

Year 1: coursework Year 2: coursework Year 3: field exams & dissertation research Year 4: dissertation research Year 5: dissertation writing

Upon entering the program, students are expected to design a schedule of courses with their advisor and/or an appropriate faculty member in the field.  A recommended potential course of study might take the following form:

Year 1: In addition to beginning their coursework, students should complete departmental course requirements in "theory and method" and consider study of a “zone of inquiry.”  At this point, students should also focus on language study.   take additional courses to develop area and theoretical expertise, including gaining broad familiarity with the world’s major religious traditions.

Summer after year 1:  Intensive language study and/or study abroad

Year 2: Complete course requirements with an eye towardsfurther developing their research interests both within the department and in related disciplines. At this point, students should begin planning for their M. Phil. Exam by identifying relevant subjects, approaching potential examiners, and considering  dissertation topics.  Beginning in the second year, students serve as teaching fellows for religion department courses.

Summer after year 2: Some students might further develop their language skills, pursue study abroad, devote time for M. Phil Exam preparation, or conduct preliminary dissertation research in preparation for writing grant applications.

Year 3: It is important to note that most grant proposals to fund dissertation research have early fall deadlines.  This year is often devoted to preparation for  the M. Phil exam, which are taken in the middle or near the end of the spring semester.  Note that a complete dissertation prospectus is usually defended by the end of spring semester.

Year 4: This year is spent in dissertation research and writing.   

Year 5: In theory, students complete the writing of  their dissertation in the fifth year. For students who receive external funding for their fourth-year research, the five years of GSAS funding can extend through the sixth year.  (Serve as teaching assistant in fall and spring semesters.)

Language Requirements

By the time of the completion of the second field exam, students are expected to have achieved competency in at least two languages of the Islamic world (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu or other, depending on the student’s research interests and needs. Students are free to choose any combination of languages.  When relevant for their research, students may also be expected to gain reading competence in a European language which is left to the discretion of the dissertation advisor (in consultation with the student). 

No student may proceed beyond the second field exam without having demonstrated a research-level competence in the language (or languages) required for the successful completion of his/her dissertation. Students must achieve at least fourth-year competency in the language(s) in question.  Proficiency (in a primary research language) is evaluated through a special competency exam arranged by the advisor. Competence in a student’s secondary “Islamic” language requires successful completion of at least three years of language study. 

The M. Phil Exam

The purpose of the exam is to show that the student has a basic grasp of the major issues and methodological approaches of Islamic studies. A student should demonstrate a grasp of the key scholarly debates/controversies in contemporary Islamic studies including (but not limited to) historiography, theology, law, and political history.  

Before a student takes their M. Phil Exam, they must demonstrate a mastery of the sources and methods necessary for the development and execution of a focused research project of dissertation.  The means for making this determination are left to the discretion of the advisor in consultation with the student.

The exam consists of three subject-based assessments followed by an oral examination which should take place no later than two weeks after the completion of the final written exam

Each student is required to develop three reading lists.  This is done in consultation with the primary advisor and other faculty examiners.   Reading lists must be approved and finalized by both the student and the examination committee (at least) one semester prior to the administration of the exam. 

There is considerable latitude in the selection of the subjects on which the student is to be examined

Topics for the subject exams may include: early Islamic history, Islamic Law, theology, Sufism, Islamic thought in the modern period, the anthropology of Islam, etc.  Students are strongly advised to include at least one subject from the formative or classical periods, especially if they have little previous background in these areas.

Format and Procedures

Part 1: Written exam (9-11 double spaced pages) on the state of the Field of Islamic Studies, focused on problems of method and perspective/theory.  This exam is intended to set a broad context for dissertation research and teaching in the student’s primary area of scholarship (up to 50 titles).

Part 2: Written subject exam (9-11 double spaced pages) (30 titles).

Part 3: Second written subject exam (9-11 double spaced pages). Parts 2 and 3 should draw upon different titles and address different themes or methodologies.

Normally, each exam is to be answered (closed-book) in a four-hour period, though the format of these exams is at the discretion of the primary advisor and should be determined in consultation with the student well in advance of the exam (see other alternatives in the general departmental guidelines for the M. Phil exam).   All three parts of the exam must be administered within a seven-day period.  

Oral M. Phil. Examination:

Within two weeks of the written exam, an oral discussion should be scheduled to allow students to elaborate and further develop the ideas presented in their written exams.  The oral exam also allows students to explore issues for future investigation. If both the written and oral exams are deemed satisfactory, the student will be credited with a pass. If not, the committee may ask the student to provide a written supplement to show that weaknesses have been overcome before receiving a Pass.  Alternatively, the committee may choose to assign the mark of “Low Pass” (see departmental guidelines).

The Dissertation prospectus and oral defense:

Within 6 weeks of completing the M Phil exam (or over the following summer), in preparation for the dissertation prospectus oral defense, the student should submit to their committee members the following:

• The dissertation prospectus.  The prospectus should be approximately 25 double-spaced pages long and should include a chapter outline with brief chapter summaries, as well as a detailed bibliography of relevant sources.
• It is optional for a student to also submit a portfolio of seminar papers written during the student’s coursework in the program to give committee members an overall sense of the student’s intellectual trajectory.   Students are not expected to revise these papers for inclusion in the portfolio.

The oral defense should be scheduled no later than a semester following the completion of the M. Phil. Exam. (To remain in good standing with GSAS, the defense  must  be completed within 6 months of the M. Phil.)   It should consist of an oral examination by a faculty committee (presumably the eventual dissertation committee) of a dissertation prospectus.  The student should consult with members of the field to define a topic, frame both central and secondary questions that will guide the research, outline a methodological approach, and provide an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The written document must be submitted (at least) two weeks prior to the date of the oral defense.

Master’s and Doctoral Theses in Islamic Studies

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Envisaged as a contribution to the early modern Ottoman social and intellectual history, this dissertation focuses on the region of the Ottoman-ruled South-Slavic Europe in the period between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries and investigates how imperial language ideologies and communicative practices embedded in the written word radiated back and forth among Ottoman provinces and regions. The discussion in this dissertation is centered on the texts written in South-Slavic language/s by the use of the Arabic script and the ideas that informed their production and reproduction. Some of these texts have been studied by the primarily ex-Yugoslav philologists and linguists as belonging to the so-called Slavic/Bosnian aljamiado literature which emerged in the early seventeenth century and stopped being productive in the early twentieth century. This study seeks to show that this textual corpus was larger than the received wisdom leads us think and that it was not just a product of non-elite Muslim literati of Slavic/Bosnian origin as previous interpreters have argued. The Slavic aljamiado—here reconceptualized as Slavophone Arabographia—was reflective of the various trajectories of the incorporation of South-Slavic Europe into the Ottoman imperial structure, on the one hand, and historical change of the position of Slavic language and its speakers within the Ottoman multilingual regime, on the other hand. Arguing that a relative marginality of Slavophone Arabographia within the Ottoman media ecosystem did not imply its ideological insignificance, this dissertation investigates the instances of Slavic written in the Arabic script as windows into how various individuals and groups navigated a hierarchical, and changing social order in one of the densest linguistic and cultural contact zones of the early modern world. The Ottoman Slavophone Arabographia, this dissertation suggests, is an excellent case for investigation of the relationship between language and power in the context of the early modern Ottoman empire, as well as other, comparable contexts. Last but not least, it forces us to rethink contemporary—and ahistorical—conceptions of language, culture and script that are often uncritically used by modern historians.

This is a history of information and its control as a political battleground. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the explosion of mass media and communications connected people across much of the world and made it possible to transmit more information across longer distances than ever before. But in many places, the same period witnessed the reimagining and retrenchment of official secrecy. This dissertation investigates this apparent paradox from the vantage point of Egypt. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt lay at the center of global networks of trade, transport, and technology. Coveting an empire of its own in East Africa, it was enmeshed in the Ottoman Empire and, after 1882, in the British Empire, too. Between the 1870s and the 1950s, a series of challenges to imperial governance, each tied to war or its specter, brought a pair of contentious questions into focus: What did the public have the right to know? And what was the state entitled to conceal?

When the nineteenth century began, states did not share basic details of how they functioned, such as the scale of debts and revenue, or the size of their armies, with people outside government. By the century’s end, a vocal “public” was demanding to know more. In Egypt, a conception of information about the state as a public good—about a public “right to know”—crystallized in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This was due to the confluence of three main factors. First, and most important, was a political environment riddled with frictions due to Britain’s semi-colonial rule, which foreclosed Egypt’s own imperial project and independence. The second was the widespread use of telegraphy, a technology on which the state relied heavily but did not fully control. The third was the expansion of the Arabic press, which attracted dissidents from across the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds to Egypt and gave public demands a prominent platform.

Demand for more information about affairs of state provoked a backlash with long-lasting consequences. At first, authorities were ill-prepared to provide a rationale for secrecy. This changed in the decade before World War I, when high-profile assassinations prompted them to link the circulation of information to political violence. A corresponding shift from policing deeds to policing ideas took tighter hold amid the nationalist revolution of 1919, as colonial officials feared collusion between their Egyptian colleagues and a wider hostile society. When British officials began a gradual retreat following Egypt’s nominal independence in 1922, the compartmentalization of information within organs of state entrenched a renewed culture of concealment. In 1948, the Arab defeat in Palestine drew scrutiny to the secrets and silences this climate had nourished, and popular anger at the absence of information that convincingly explained the loss contributed to the ouster of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952. Yet rather than leading to a new era of trust and transparency, the narrative that emerged in the gap between the propaganda people were fed and what they believed to be true was seized on by the military regime that took its place and helped to sustain it in power.

This dissertation explores early twentieth-century Palestine through the lens of bodies and material culture. While histories of modern Palestine often treat “Jews” and “Arabs” as naturally distinct categories, I examine how these categories were constructed as racialized, embodied, and opposing identities. At a time when Palestine witnessed major changes— including the transition from Ottoman to British rule, mass Zionist settlement, shifting labor patterns, and the rise of Palestinian nationalism—residents made sense of their identities by spreading ideas about whose bodies were like, or unlike, their own. This dissertation focuses on Sephardi and Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews, many of whom lived in Palestine prior to modern Zionist settlement, which offers a unique lens to explore the process of Arab-Jewish boundary-making. At the turn of the twentieth century, Mizrahi Jewish bodies were not always clearly marked as exclusively “Jewish” or “Arab.” Their clothing, accents, and cultural tastes were often indistinguishable from those of their Muslim and Christian neighbors in Palestine. However, the growing colonial-national conflict in the 1920s and 1930s forced Mizrahi Jews to confront their position vis-à-vis Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. They adopted several strategies in light of this new reality. Many abandoned “Arab” clothing and accents in order to assimilate into the Ashkenazi-dominated Jewish community (Yishuv). In doing so, they helped produce a visual and sonic Arab-Jewish division on the ground. Others challenged the emerging divide by refusing to change their bodies. They expressed pride in their cultural and linguistic heritage in the Islamic world. Yet others selectively employed their “Oriental” bodies as a way to assert Zionist belonging and nativeness in Palestine.

This dissertation makes three broader contributions. First, using photographs, oral histories, material culture, and written sources, it illuminates how clothing, sounds, sexuality, and age become racialized in circumstances of colonial-national conflict. Second, while scholars often point to one “year zero” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the founding of a political movement, the outbreak of ethnic violence, or the publication of a specific document, I demonstrate that building a Jewish-Arab division demanded the constant policing of how individuals looked and sounded. Finally, the dissertation’s focus on Mizrahi Jews pushes scholars of settler colonialism to think beyond a local-versus-settler paradigm. Many Mizrahi Jews in Palestine were locals who also became part of a settler movement; they were, as I term them, “local settlers.” The story of this dissertation, then, is the story of how the locals became settlers.

In this ethnography, I examine fragmented urban and social dynamics in Istanbul, Turkey. The issues of the country are mirrored and coalesced into these dynamics. Binaries of proper/valuable versus improper/abjected city and citizens emerge from a “New Turkey” politics. This creates hierarchies of bodies, urban spaces, ecological practices, and types of knowledge. Rooted in historical de/valuation processes, Turkey’s current technologies of power intensify and gain new momentum and scale. Lawfare, identity politics, urban planning, and technocratic ecological strategies are instrumental in implementing interdependent urban and social transformation. Drawing on two years of fieldwork, I analyze the contestation of governmental actors, local authorities, environmental activists, local residents, and garbage workers over the production and valuation of bodies, space, and ecology. From this, I address the broader picture of classist, gendered, ethnic, and racist discrimination as a process that most evidently manifests itself in urban space.

The socio-spatial impact of a “New Turkey” is most starkly felt among the urban poor whose livelihood depends on environmental practices. Here, I focus on a specific group that is invisible for many: non-municipal garbage workers who are targets of intersectional devaluation. Through green(wash)ing strategies, their homes are displaced by “healthy and sustainable” luxury housing projects and infrastructure. They are treated as second-class citizens and, therefore, socially and economically immobilized. At the same time, they contest the authorities over garbage as a commodity, and the law criminalizes their recycling practices. Conflict and resistance occur not only between actors but also within institutions, activist movements, and affected communities. As various players share risks, new—and sometimes unexpected—alliances are formed under the common goals of social and environmental justice and rights to the city. The ambiguity of all of this is reflected in the title: “BRAVE NEW TURKEY.” On the one hand it speaks to the forging of the current hegemonic Turkishness and Turkish urban landscape under the banner of the “New Turkey” politics. On the other hand a “brave new Turkey” addresses the creative conflict and resistance against this dystopian moment of governing bodies, urban space, and ecology. Indeed, this research deals with the continuous efforts of various groups who claim their place in their “new Turkey.” Under the current political and social circumstances, I consider this an act of bravery. After all, a new Turkey belongs not only to the hegemonically powerful but also to those who shape the country’s future through their creative struggle for diversity and inclusion.

In the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, for most of the sixteenth century, only royalty and close companions of the sultan enjoyed the experience of perusing an album, the premier form of preserving and viewing single-folio works on paper. Yet in the last few decades of the century, the first surviving cases of commercial albums reveal that the practice had moved beyond the palace, attracting both wealthy Ottoman urbanites and European travelers alike. This dissertation delves into the history of the art market from the production to the consumption of loose-leaf paintings in numerous compilation formats. Although scholarship on Istanbul’s early modern art market and single-folio paintings has often centered on analyses of individual manuscripts, such as costume albums, this study aims to contextualize these single-folio paintings as part of a wider network of urban production. In this network, models and designs circulated between artists of numerous social groups and specialties, as well as through foreign import. The study further refocuses attention on codicology in order to illustrate how the trappings of a collection could profoundly impact the reception of the works within it and reveal precious detail about the backgrounds of the owners, many of whom remain anonymous today. The dissertation begins by setting the stage for the emergence of the market for single-folio paintings by analyzing the antecedents to the commercial album through Ottoman court albums, portraits, and the works of unofficial court artists who lived in the city. It then turns to European genres such as costume books and alba amicorum (friendship albums), before turning to the first commercial album, which fuses features from the aforementioned areas. Chapter Two assesses production techniques, emphasizing the mobility of model forms, before turning to artists’ multi-professional backgrounds. The next two chapters delve into the collecting practices of the two main consumer groups. Chapter Three follows the development of costume albums primarily collected by European travelers over the seventeenth century as objects of novelty crafted from a commonplace corpus of models. It tracks the expansion of the model corpus, shifts in binding and mounting practices, and the relationships between albums (as well as their identified forgeries).

Chapter Four offers a history of compilation among urbanite Ottomans of a literati persuasion over the seventeenth century as a story of taste-making on the page. As the practice grew, artists began offering a wider range of works to suit multiple price points of paintings and bindings among their consumers. Chapter Five continues to follow Ottoman compilers into the eighteenth century after the court’s return to Istanbul in 1703, which coincided with a significant increase in album-making. This period brought about the rise of specialized painting collections. The market also began to engage with its past as later commercial albums provided a wider chronological range of paintings from numerous traditions, which included refurbished and creatively over-painted works. Rather than Westernization, these albums indicate a global outlook that reflected mercantile networks of the time. The last two chapters delve into the case of an unstudied trilogy of albums at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France that exemplifies these later trends. Together, they offer a hypothesis for the background of the owner while situating the albums in the local and transregional contexts that created this cosmopolitan work.

This dissertation explores the form, substance and social context of pious exhortations in medieval Islamic history, focusing on ideas about gossip and slander. It is a study on a single concept of enduring significance in Islamic ethics, the notion of ghība or backbiting, defined as unwelcome statements of fact as opposed to false slander (buhtān). Prohibited by the Qurʾān, the mundane social vice of speaking ill about other people in their absence was a source of great moral concern, with ramifications in discourses of piety, religious ethics, ritual law, and eschatology. Early proponents of the isnād method for the authentication of ḥadīth had to frequently address the ethical quandary that their criticism of transmitters might be tantamount to sinful gossip. I demonstrate that the discourse on ghība stems from a broader ethics of “disciplining the tongue” among the early Muslim renunciants of the so-called zuhd movement. A major work by the Baghdadi scholar Ibn Abī l-Dunyā (d. 281 AH/894 CE), the Kitāb al-Ṣamt wa-ādāb al-lisān or “Book of Silence and Etiquettes of the Tongue” serves as a key point of departure for this study. I examine the traditions, stories and wise maxims on ghība in the context of zuhd, ḥadīth, tafsīr and fiqh sources, as well as their broader reception in pious ethics literature of the ninth and tenth centuries CE. Through close attention to motifs, I argue further that some early Muslim ideas about gossip and slander reflect older traditions of religious thought in late antiquity. The commonalities are evident especially in the Apophthegmata Patrum or Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Resonances can be traced as well through eschatological motifs common to Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian apocalyptic literature and Islamic imaginations of hell, in which the sin of backbiting is met with severe punishments. In contrast to conventional ancient punishment motifs for slander, Islamic eschatology introduces new types of scenes informed by the Qurʾānic metaphor of ghība as eating the flesh of another. Early Muslim ethical discourses thus interpreted a universal moral concern through a combination of inherited traditions and original elements.

My dissertation reconceptualizes the Iranian Constitutional period (1905-1911) as an era of spectacle, in which photography played a central role in defining, mobilizing, and memorializing political movements and their leaders. The first chapter of my dissertation traces the role and impact of one specific photograph: a portrait of Joseph Naus, the Belgian head of the Iranian tax and customs systems, in the costume of an Iranian mullah. The circulation of the photograph, which had been reproduced as a postcard with a caption that purposefully misinterpreted the image, sparked a nationwide protest and turned the previously economic protest into a religiously legitimated one. The photograph became the basis for a fatwa and death threats to Naus. The second chapter discusses photographs of political protest. It focuses on a key event of the Constitutional Revolution, a several weeks-long sit-in during the summer of 1906 in the gardens of the British Legation in Tehran. In my research, I was able to prove that the so far unattributed series of photographs of this event was taken by the well-known photographer Antoin Sevruguin. The third chapter focuses on political portrait photographs from the second half of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, which was characterized by revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence. I analyze portraits of Iranian assassins and their victims and show how these acts of violence were influenced by global political movements and international media coverage. The epilogue of my dissertation focuses on the events directly following the Constitutional Revolution, when the Russian army invaded Tabriz and executed the remaining revolutionaries. I discuss the photographic documentation of the events, the circulation of the images, and their changing interpretations.

The corpus of silks recovered from the medieval tombs of Rayy, which lies to the South of modern-day Tehran in Iran, date from the late tenth to the early thirteenth centuries. Their span corresponds to a period of time referred to here as “late Abbasid” (ca. 950-1250), in which the hegemony of the Abbasid dynasty (r. 750-1258) had faded, giving way to a soft power propped up by a series of vassal sovereigns—principally, the Buyids (r. 945-1030), the Ghaznavids (r.1030-1032, Iran), and the Seljuks (r. 1032-1250, Iran). While the tombs can be attributed to the early decades of Seljuk reign in the mid-eleventh century, the textiles included in the graves were woven both before and after the monuments’ construction. As a result, the finds at Rayy offer a unique opportunity to observe, within a fixed frame of context, how artistic forms were maintained, and their meanings slowly altered over this tumultuous period. By analyzing the textiles according to art historical and material culture methods, the dissertation argues that the Rayy textiles reveal the ambivalent identities and evolving ambitions of the successive dynasties that made use of them. They show, at once, a conscientious upholding of the caliphal norms and ceremonials required of dynastic elites, as well as a concerted manipulation of those rules aimed at projecting kingship amid the changing realities of the Abbasid empire. To highlight the fundamental cross-purposes these textiles served, the dissertation divides them into three, seemingly straightforward categories: textiles of the public sphere, the private sphere, and the funerary sphere. These spheres conform to the ideals of Abbasid ceremonial and decorum and serve as an opportunity to question how principles of proper conduct were enacted aesthetically. At the same time, the spheres reveal the limitations faced by dynastic rulers and their elite circles, as well as how they responded by pushing the boundaries of each category. The duality of each sphere demonstrates how the textiles from Rayy were integral in the self-fashioning that allowed the vassal kings to nominally uphold the Abbasid order, while simultaneously carving out a place for their own modes of sovereignty, worship, and commemoration. Although textile finds rumored to come from Rayy have been studied since their initial “discovery” by dealers in early 1925, forgeries made in the 1930s and thereafter have forced scholarship to deal almost exclusively with modern questions of authenticity. The origins, debates, and outcomes of the so-called “Buyid Silk Controversy” receive further elucidation here. It is, however, principally the question of medieval authenticity which lies at the center of this study. That is to say, textiles were often a medium of display and luxury; as such, they provide a means of understanding how authenticity—be it a marker of public position, self image, or faith—was enacted visually and materially in the late Abbasid period. The Rayy corpus offers a crucial glimpse of these processes, as late Abbasid artistic products rarely have clear dates or places of manufacture, let alone provenances. As such, the dissertation takes a hermeneutic look at this corpus, deriving evidence from their formal, technical, and material analysis, in order to elucidate the contrived continuity of self-fashioning in the late Abbasid period, as well as the nuanced variations compelled by each successive ruling dynasty as they adapted Abbasid ceremonial to their own aspirations.

This dissertation investigates how early modern Ottoman medical scholars viewed the concept of novelty and how it manifested itself in the socio-political domain. Appearing in the mid-seventeenth century and maintaining its substantial impact throughout the eighteenth century, ṭıbb-ı cedīd (new medicine) became a very significant concept and practice that almost all the prominent scholars of the era explored. This was the first time that discussions regarding the utilization of al/chemical ideas and practices in medical philosophy and pharmacology were introduced into the medical scholarship via a group of Ottoman scholars. In previous scholarship, this era has either been portrayed as a “transitional” period, which represented the abandonment of the “traditional medicine” for adoption of European medicine, or as a time when intriguing works were produced without yielding any substantial novelties in medical practice.

Primarily by undertaking a close reading of the representative texts of the ṭıbb-ı cedīd corpus, this study demonstrates the complex interactions between the various epistemological approaches available to the Ottoman physicians as they produced the medical corpus of a new era. This study shows that the eighteenth-century scholars never disowned their Galenic heritage completely, while embracing new al/ chemical ideas. Moreover, they did not accomplish their intellectual endeavors as part of a state-sponsored Europeanization/Westernization project. This emerging corpus created fertile ground for lively discussions in Ottoman medical scholarship, which went hand in hand with the application of new curative substances, imported from various parts of the world, including, but not exclusive to the Americas. I approach these moments of critical translation and adaptation from lived aspects of medical practice, which are overlooked in current scholarship in the history of medicine that has restricted the material to the intertextual domain of books and ideas. Furthermore, this study, regards the physician as one among the artisans of the marketplace, which brings to light how their practice and profession were negotiated with the Ottoman State during the eighteenth century. Last but not least, I look at the nineteenth-century afterlife of ṭıbb-ı cedīd, when western-influenced reforms were taking place in every aspect of life and a new discourse on medicine and medical education were being introduced. I show that the Imperial Medical School (Mekteb-i Ṭıbbīyye-i Şāhāne) had an immense impact on the physicians of the era on their evaluation of their medical past, including ṭıbb-ı cedīd, and created a lineage of physician-historians who produced modernist-positivistic historiographies, which still influences medical history-writing today, especially in Turkish scholarship.

The fifteenth-century Ottoman world was a dynamic seedbed of philosophical and theological debates and was particularly marked by numerous adjudications produced by certain celebrated scholars who synthesized different domains of knowledge—whether it was speculative theology, philosophy or Sufism. This dissertation focuses on two important adjudications written on the renowned twelfth-century theologian Abū Ḥamīd al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) Tahāfut al-falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), which arbitrates between Arabic philosophy and theology.

Sultan Meḥemmed II ordered two prominent Ottoman scholars of his time, Ḫocazāde Muṣliḥ al-Dīn (d. 893/1488) and cAlā’ al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 887/1482), to prepare an adjudication on al-Ghazālī’s arguments. Sources indicate that the Sultan ultimately favored Ḫocazāde’s text. This study focuses on Ḫocazāde’s and al-Ṭūsī’s responses to the discussion of secondary causation and occasionalism in al-Ghazālī’s Discussion Seventeen on how existent things interact with each other and come into being in nature in concomitance with God’s all-encompassing power. Ḫocazāde particularly defended certain aspects of Graeco-Arabic philosophy (i.e. the Aristotelian-Avicennan philosophical tradition), whereas al-Ṭūsī favored the more orthodox Ashcarite approach, in which he denied the agency and the causal contribution of any being other than God. This examination argues that Ḫocazāde’s response to this discussion indicates why he was included among the seven select scholars who synthesized philosophy with Sharīca according to the seventeenth-century encyclopedist and savant Kātib Çelebi (d. 1068/1657). Ḫocazāde’s and al-Ṭūsī’s divergent approaches to the issues of secondary causation and occasionalism typify other formulations in the fifteenth-century Ottoman world that combined different aspects of Graeco-Arabic philosophy, speculative theology, and Sunnī creed, constituting a synthesis.

This study assays the works of Ḫocazāde and al-Ṭūsī in physics, metaphysics and speculative theology with regard to the common medrese handbooks studied during the fifteenth-century, as well as their responses to al-Ghazālī’s aforementioned work—in comparative perspective with a third approach espoused by Şemseddīn Aḥmed bin Mūsā, also known as Ḫayālī (d. 875/1470?). This study traces the formulations of Ḫocazāde, al-Ṭūsī, and Ḫayālī in common medrese handbooks of the time by documenting how their approaches were motivated by post-classical scholars such as Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī (d. 663/1255?), Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) and al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413). This research highlights a new group of scholars emerging in the second half of the fifteenth century, hailed as “verifiers” (al-muḥaqqiqūn), who were able to synthesize various philosophical and theological formulations from differing textual traditions. Ḫocazāde epitomized this new scholar type, developing a coherent argument by incorporating elements from Graeco-Arabic philosophy and speculative theology.

This dissertation is an ethnography of socio-natural encounters that shape, and are shaped by, the building of dam infrastructures within the Çoruh River Watershed of Turkey. Known as one of the fastest-running rivers in the world, the Çoruh River has been converted into a hydropower “resource” over the last two decades, through the construction of fifteen large hydroelectric dams. In contrast to the imagery of dam reservoirs as giant infrastructures that simply conquer and erase the natural landscape, this dissertation traces the formulization of soil sedimentation in the reservoirs as a problem to be solved by watershed forestry, which has refashioned forests as protective infrastructures of “water resources” and hydraulic infrastructures. This refashioning, I show, occurs through sedimented histories of nation-state building, developmentalism, and authoritarian populism taking shape in material infrastructures and environments. My ethnographic research among the implementers of the Çoruh River Watershed Rehabilitation Project to prevent sedimentation in dams reveals the encounters between the foresters’ and upland villagers’ conceptualizations of abandoned mountainous farmlands as landscapes of natural recovery versus desolation. I then shift my focus to the valley floor and examine the making of the Yusufeli Dam reservoir as a process narrated and experienced by town inhabitants through the trope of (self-)sacrifice for the greater national interest. In response, local state officials intend to compensate for these sacrificed zones by relocating agricultural soil and local fruit trees. These practices of what I call salvage agriculture render the sedimented and laborious histories of working the land a resource to be tapped into for the reconstruction of a new town. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research along the Çoruh Valley and its mountains, as well as five months of archival research in ministries and other institutions, Sedimented Encounters explores dam construction as a generative process that enacts and intertwines the making of “natural resources,” the nation-state and its developmental and conservationist endeavors, and the politics of negotiation and sacrifice. Along this process, I argue, socio-natural landscapes are produced simultaneously as places of natural recovery, (self)-sacrifice, and salvage.

This dissertation describes basic genetic research and biobanking of ethnic populations in Israel and Qatar. I track how biomedical research on ethnic populations relates to the political, economic, legal, and historical context of the states; to global trends in genetic medicine; and to the politics of identity in the context of global biomedical research. I describe the ways biology is becoming a site for negotiating identity in ethnic genetics, in discourse over rights to citizenship, in rare disease genetics, and in personalized medicine. The core focus of this work is the way the molecular realm is an emergent site for articulations of ethnonational identities in the contemporary Middle East. This is thus a study of Middle Eastern ethnonationalism and state building through the lens of biology, specifically genetics and biobanking. In revealing the complex interdigitations of genomic technologies and articulations of ethnonational identity, this scholarship informs the biopolitics of the contemporary Middle East. I find that societal conditions (emerging national identities, immigration, demographic pressures, enskillment of citizens, biomedical capacity building, and globalization of the economy), and technological affordances (such advances in the speed and power of genomic sequencing technologies, and the entailed promises of biomedical progress), collide to overdetermine biological iterations of ethnic identity, and I show that biobanking projects serve, to varying degrees, to inculcate an imagination of shared history; a collective community; and a healthy utopian future. I argue that the Israeli and Qatari national biobanks imagine participation in ‘global science’ while at the same time they reinforce local ethnic identities. The Israeli biobank reflects pre-existing ethnic identities in Israeli society, while the Qatari biobank preferentially emphasizes the emergent national character of the Qatari population. As a comparative study of genetics and ethnic identity in the contemporary Middle East, this research, therefore, speaks both to the social theory of the co-production of science and society and to the anthropology of nation and state building.

This dissertation is a study on piety and religious practice as shaped by the experience of pilgrimage to these numerous saintly shrines in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Timurid Iran and Central Asia. Shrine visitation, or ziyārat, was one of the most ubiquitous Islamic devotional practices across medieval Iran and Central Asia, at times eliciting more zeal than obligatory rituals such as the Friday congregational prayer. This dissertation makes use of a broad source base including city histories, shrine visitation guides, compendiums of religious sciences, court histories, biographies of Sufis, endowment deeds, ethical or moral (akhlāq) treatises, and material culture in the form of architecture and epigraphical data. This work contributes to a better understanding of how Islam as a discursive tradition informed and was informed by the piety and religious practice of medieval Muslims of all classes. It challenges a vision of a monolithic Islamic orthopraxy by showing how the very fabric of Islam in medieval Iran and Central Asia represented both continuity with an Islamic past and a catering to local and contemporary needs.

The aim of this study is three-fold. First, it argues that the forms of ritual prescribed in the Timurid shrine manuals largely coalesced into a coherent program in this period and reflect a vernacular understanding of shrine visitation found in the more scholarly Islamic literature. It also demonstrates how the performance of the physical practices and oral litanies of the ziyārat formed part of the habitus of a pilgrim. Second, the hagiographic stories of the holy dead revered at these shrines represent tangible ideals of pious living for society to imitate. They point to the centrality of esotericism, miracle-working and a rigorous adherence to the Sharia in constructing this template. For example, a major part of the saintliness of Abū Yūsuf Hamadānī, an important saint buried in Samarkand, stems from his extreme religious observance. He is said to have made the Hajj thirty-three times, finished the Qur’an over a thousand times, memorized over seven hundred books on the religious sciences, received over two hundred and sixteen scholars and spent most of his life fasting. On the other hand, the patron saint of this same city, Shāh-i Zinda, is revered for his supernatural powers and his relation to the Prophet Muḥammad. This amplified reverence for the Prophet Muḥammad and his family demonstrates the increasing precedence of shrines of people genealogically linked to the Prophet Muḥammad as objects of veneration by the largely Sunni populations in the Timurid period.

The third and final aim of this dissertation is to provide a map of the actual places of pilgrimage and establish the importance of the “locality” of saints in creating a shared identity and history using the methods of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). It traces the ways that pilgrims would move through their cities to visit the various shrines scattered across the landscape. The journey to some shrines fell well within the normal daily movements of an inhabitant of a particular city, while other journeys proved more arduous, pointing to the possibility of a varied ziyārat experience. While many shrines were presented as single locations, there are instances when a pilgrim is advised to make a circuit of many important shrines in a certain area or of a certain type of holy person (e.g. prophets). The routes and spaces, along with mosques and madrasas, are embedded in a sacred geography of the city.

This dissertation examines the political thought of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1201), a Sunni Muslim religious scholar who flourished as a preacher in twelfth-century Baghdad. During this period, Baghdad was the main arena of conflict between the Abbasid caliphs and the Seljuq sultans as both sides competed to exert control over the city. The militarized rule of the Seljuqs also entailed heavy taxation and harsh punitive measures on the populace. Through an intertextual reading of various genres in the Islamic intellectual tradition, this study reconstructs Ibn al-Jawzī’s intellectual response to the shifting political dynamics of the twelfth-century Islamic world.

This dissertation argues that Ibn al-Jawzī adopted an ameliorative approach to politics and emphasized the values of piety and religious knowledge as the hallmarks of ideal Islamic rulership. To ensure that the ruling authorities govern based on piety and the sharīʿa, Ibn al-Jawzī envisions a greater role for religious scholars in the political sphere. His ideal ruler is one who devotes himself to the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, adheres to Islamic legal and ritualistic precepts, and consults with scholars. These ideals depart from the dominant political discourses of his time that prioritize the ruler’s ability to maintain societal order, regardless of his moral and religious qualities. Yet Ibn al-Jawzī’s emphasis on piety and knowledge did not steer his political thought towards the radical ideologies upheld by certain fringe groups such as the Khārijites. Instead, he pursues an ameliorative approach to politics that aims at mediatory, moderate, and pragmatic reform. This approach is best represented by the preacher who uses his rhetorical skills to tame the arbitrary nature of power and guide the ruler towards righteous rule. It also comes across in Ibn al-Jawzī’s juristically prudent effort to protest against dismal political situations without overtly sanctioning the act of rebellion against a ruler who rules unjustly and impiously.

A study of Ibn al-Jawzī’s political discourses points towards a new reading of the history of Islamic political thought that, rather than focusing solely on Muslim thinkers who promulgated the principle of “might is right,” takes into account as well diverse and competing approaches to power. It sheds light on the various creative ways in which Muslim intellectuals utilized writings to effect social and political reform.

“Genetic Nationalism” is a comparative history of human genetics research in Iran, Turkey, and Israel. Covering the century between the First World War and the present, I show how the technologies and discourses of racial anthropology and medical genetics have been locally adapted to construct national identities and control ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Furthermore, I investigate how the global biomedical infrastructure of the Cold War era reinscribed colonial patterns of scientific collaboration and technological development.

Intervening in existing postcolonial critiques of science, I argue that even as Middle Eastern researchers have been marginalized in the Western-dominated international scientific community, they have simultaneously acted as technocratic elites to reinforce nationalist hegemonies within their own countries. I base this argument on an original analysis of over 350 scientific publications on inherited physiological traits, blood group frequencies, and DNA variations among Iranian, Turkish, and Israeli populations. My analysis juxtaposes these scientific texts with the archived correspondence and oral history records of Middle Eastern scientists and their Western colleagues, examining how the two groups interacted with each other and with their research subjects to produce a set of “ethnic myths” merging scientific inquiry with local understandings of heredity, identity, and nation. My comparative work shows that despite the massive advancements in technological sophistication between anthropometry and whole-genome sequencing, geneticists have continuously relied on nationalist narratives of population origins to select research subjects and interpret their genetic data. Ultimately, these globally standardized research practices have reified sociopolitical categories into biological entities.

This dissertation is a study of human mobility in the western provinces of the Ottoman empire in the early modern era. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Ottomans had absorbed nearly the entire Balkan Peninsula. Dubrovnik (also known as Ragusa), a small mercantile republic on the Adriatic Sea, found itself surrounded by Ottoman territory. Dubrovnik managed to maintain its autonomy and preserve its coastal territories by accepting the position of tribute-paying vassal to the Ottoman state. In this context, the Ragusa Road, which stretched across Ottoman Rumelia (the Balkan Peninsula) to Istanbul, developed into a major axis of trade, diplomacy, and exchange. Unlike other pathways in the region, such as the Via Egnatia to the south, the Ragusa Road did not play a prominent role in earlier Roman transportation networks. Furthermore, the route was longer and more mountainous than alternatives. Yet, by the early sixteenth century, the Ragusa Road had become established as the most important East-West highway across the Balkan Peninsula, a corridor of communications linking the Ottoman capital to western Europe.

I explore the forces that conditioned and propelled overland travel on the Ragusa Road. Ottoman and Ragusan actors used complementary policies and practices to reduce obstacles and encourage overland travel. The results were mutually beneficial, and led to the route's increasing prominence in long-distance patterns of movement. Merchants, diplomats, pilgrims and spies increasingly elected to travel in Ragusan caravans, avoiding the vicissitudes of the maritime route. The cultural ramifications of the Ragusa Road's development are thus significant, as caravan travel brought together members of multiple religious, ethnic and linguistic communities, all of whom traveled together across a topographically challenging and culturally complex region. The records of these travelers reveal the unique cultural space of the road – and that of Ottoman Rumelia – in the early modern Mediterranean.

This dissertation focuses on preachers as key actors in the rise of a political public sphere in the early modern Ottoman Empire. Recently, literature on the political importance of corporate bodies and voluntary associations has transformed the understanding of the early modern Ottoman polity. Emphasis has shifted from the valorization of centralized institutions to understanding power as negotiated between the court and other stakeholders. My dissertation joins in this collective effort by way of studying preachers, and through them examining the negotiation of religious authority between the central administration and civic groups. I depict preachers as “mediating” religious power between the elite and the non-elite, and between the written and the oral cultures. I argue that the production of religious doctrine and authority took place at this intermediary space of encounter.

This study of early modern Islam with reference to the frame of public sphere has two main implications. Firstly, I present a “preacher-political advisor” type in order to demonstrate that the critical potential of religion was preserved in a new guise. Secondly, I show that informal circles of education gained primacy in the seventeenth century, giving rise to the vernacularization of formal sciences. The close reading of the manuscript sources left by preachers and their pupils also constitutes the first systematic exploration of the intersection between orality and literacy, and an important contribution to the study of Ottoman popular culture.

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Dissertations and theses

More recent successful doctoral theses are currently subject to a time-limited ‘bar on access’ and will become available when this bar of access expires.

Jones, Laura 2022. Ramadan in the UK: A month of ambiguity . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Khan, Ayesha 2020.  SUFISTICATED: Exploring post-Tariqa Sufi expression amongst young British Muslims . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Sidat, Haroon 2019. Formation and training of British Muslim scholars (Ulama): An ethnography of a Dar al-Uloom in Britain . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Vince, Matthew  2018. Muslim identities in contemporary Britain: The case of Muslim religious education teachers . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Khan, Asma 2018. Beliefs, choices, and constraints: understanding and explaining the economic inactivity of British Muslim women . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Timol, Riyaz 2017. Spiritual wayfarers in a secular age: the Tablighi Jama'at in modern Britain . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Ahmed, Abdul-Azim 2016. Sacred rhythms: an ethnography of a Cardiff mosque . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Morris, Carl 2013.  Sounds Islamic? Muslim music in Britain. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

Warden, Rosalind 2013.  A sociological study of Islamic social work in contemporary Britain . PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

MA dissertations

All dissertations by Jameel scholars for the Master's degree 'Islam In Contemporary Britain' since the programme began.

2021 – 2022

Bethan Gibbs Twenty Years of Gender and Islam in the British News

Sam Bartlett An Alternative Account of Muslim Home-Education: Escaping the Lens of Muslim Exceptionalism

Sami Bryant Islamic Environmental Activism: the case of Muslims for Extinction Rebellion

Hamzah Zahid I’tikāf: A British Muslim’s Spiritual Sojourn

2018–2019

Seherish Abrar Female ‘Ulama in West Yorkshire

Muhammad Belal Ghafoor The future of Muslim religious leadership in Scotland

Megan Richards Team sport in Wales: Access and engagement for Muslim women. A specific focus on netball in the region 

Rory Wade Is anti-Ahmadiyya discrimination an issue in the British Muslim community?

2017–2018

Hasnan Hussain How do British Muslims who have same-sex attractions negotiate their identity?

2016 - 2017

Jamilla Hekmoun To what extent, if any, is anti-blackness a problem within Muslim communities in Britain?

2015–2016

Faisal Ali Policing Campus: Muslim students and Prevent

Grace Phelps What does the use of online matrimonial sites reveal about British Muslim women today?

2014–2015

Joseph Ford Does Islamic critical realism provide a useful ‘lens’ for researching contemporary British Muslim leadership and civil engagement?

Thomas Walters British Muslims’ experiences of interfaith dialogue

2013–2014

Sandra Maurer Embodying the Qur’an in 21st century Britain: a case study with a Muslim university student

Natasha Tiley British-Muslim perceptions of 'Citizen Khan'

2012–2013

Yunus Ali How and to what extent can modern educational practices be employed to help make traditional Islamic education more meaningful and relevant for young Muslims living in Britain?: A case study of the Amanah Centre 

Anisa Ather Why are British Muslims writing? Interviews with three British-Muslim memoir writers

Matthew Vince 'We don’t make life, we reflect it' Eastenders: Masood family and the question of Islamophobic representation within the British Media

2011–2012

Ellora Adam Exploring the role and potential of theatre in Islamic supplementary education

Fambaye Sow What are British Muslims’ perceptions in regard to the situation of Muslims in France?

2010–2011

Abdul-Azim Ahmed Visual Dhikr: a visual analysis of mosques in Cardiff

Adviya Khan Muslim women in hip-hop: an ethnographic study of ‘poetic pilgrimage’

Emily-Rose Lewis The Living Islam Festival: An Example of a British Muslim Community?

2009–2010

Helen Falconer Gathering for the sake of Allah: an ethnographic account of a women’s Halaqa group in Cardiff

Mustafa Hameed British Muslims and developing notions of citizenship

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Ph.D. Arabic & Islamic Studies

The Ph.D. Program in Arabic and Islamic Studies offer advanced training in the disciplines of Arabic Linguistics, Arabic Literature (Modern and Classical), and Islamic Studies (Intellectual History, Theology, Law) with an emphasis on the close reading and interpretation of primary sources, whether linguistic or textual, modern or classical.

The department strives to educate students in current theoretical, critical and cultural scholarly approaches as tools to explore and analyze primary sources and linguistic data and to evaluate and challenge secondary scholarship. In forming the new generation of research scholars in our fields, we strive to give them the linguistic and critical tools necessary for original and creative scholarship. Our Ph.D. students typically go on to academic careers, often beginning with post-doctoral fellowships, with tenure-track university appointments or in other research institutions.

Entering students are required to have Arabic language competence equivalent to at least that attained by the end of the third year of intensive language study in the undergraduate program at Georgetown University. In the first week of their first academic year, students who are non-native Arabic speakers are required to take an Arabic language exam administered by the department. Students who fail this exam are required to be enrolled in advanced Arabic classes, and to take the exam again at the end of the fall semester. If they still do not score satisfactorily they have until the end of the spring semester to successfully retake the exam. Students must pass the Arabic proficiency exam by the end of August of their first academic year if they are to continue in the program. Arabic language courses taken to enable students to reach the required proficiency level do not count towards the degree credits. Students who desire ACTFL proficiency certification should make arrangements with the department.

Students already enrolled in the master’s program at Georgetown must apply again if they are interested in joining the Ph.D. program; these students are not guaranteed admission, and will be considered by the admissions committee along with other applicants from outside the department.

For more details on the Ph.D. program, please see the  Graduate Handbook.

To apply, please visit the Graduate School  admissions website.

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Graduate Theses and Dissertations - Arabic & Islamic Studies

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Al-Fārābī's Theory of Science and His Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm 

Arabic Criticism of Colloquial Poetry 

The Companion's Fingerprint: Attributions to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr and Ibn ʿAbbās 

Tunisian Arabic as a Written Language: Vernacularization and Identity 

The Jurisprudence of Reality (Fiqh Al-Wāqiʿ) in Contemporary Islamic Thought: A Comparative Study of the Discourse of Yūsuf Al-Qaraḍāwī (D. 2022), Nāṣir Al-ʿumar (B.1952), And Abdullah Bin Bayyah (B.1935) 

Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies

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Dissertations

The NISIS dissertation portal provides an overview of (recent) PhD dissertations completed at one of the nine participating universities of NISIS in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. Please note that this is not an exhaustive overview, so feel free to contact us at [email protected] to have other PhD dissertations included in this portal.

List of dissertations (by date):

De moderne soefi-theologie van Mahmud Muhammad Taha 1909-1985

Author: Michiel Hoebink Date and place of defence: 27 May, 2024, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities. Venue: Agnietenkapel, 14.00 hours. More information on dissertation available at De moderne soefi-theologie van Mahmud Muhammad Taha 1909-1985 – Universiteit van Amsterdam (uva.nl)

El Corán abreviado entre mudéjares y moriscos

Author: Adrián Rodriguez Iglesias Date and place of defence: 15 February, 2024, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities. Venue: Agnietenkapel, 12.00 hours. More information on dissertation available at El Corán abreviado entre mudéjares y moriscos (uva.nl)

Muslims and palliative care in a Western context. An explorative qualitative investigation

Author: George Muishout Date and place of defence: 2 May, 2023, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities. Venue: Agnietenkapel, 12.00 hours. More information on dissertation available at Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR)

Beeldvorming en Berichtgeving; Joden toen en moslims nu

Author: Aalt Smienk Date and place of PhD defense: 4 of April 2022, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. More information on dissertation available at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Research Portal .

Techniques of the senses: 19th-century media and Shiism in Iran

Author: Arash Ghajarjazi Date and place of PhD defense: 8 October 2021, Utrecht University. More information on dissertation available at Utrecht University Repository .

The Hui Muslims’ identity negotiations: A Socio-Legal Investigation into the Tensions between the Sharīʿa and the Chinese Legal Systems

Author: Gang Li Date and place of PhD defense: 7 June 2021, University of Groningen. More information on dissertation available at Groningen Repository .

Aligning religious law and state law: Street-level bureaucrats and Muslim Marriage practices in Pasuruan Indonesia

Author: Muhammad Latif Fauzi Date and place of PhD defense: 18 May 2021, Leiden University. More information on dissertation available at Leiden University Repository .

Laying the foundations for Islam in Western Europe in the interwar period: Muslim religious institutions and European colonial policies

Author: Sophie Spaan Date and place of PhD defense: 9 April 2021, KU Leuven. More information on dissertation available at Research Portal KU Leuven .

From respected hermits to ordinary citizens

Author: Ade Suryani Date and place of PhD defense: 28 January 2021, Leiden University. More information available at Leiden University Repository .

Green Islam in Indonesia. Islam and environmental practice in Semarang

Author: Ibnu Fikri Date and place of PhD defense: 9 December 2020, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. More information available at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Research Portal .

“It was kind of safe”. The role of the market in the everyday peacebuild­ing processes during the Ambon conflicts

Author: Abellia Wardani Date and place of PhD defense: 24 November 2020, Tilburg University. More information available at  Tilburg University Research Portal .

Mecca in Morocco: Articulations of the Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) in Moroccan everyday life

Author: Kholoud Al-Ajarma Date and place of PhD defense: 10 September 2020, University of Groningen. More information available at Groningen Repository .

Contrasting visions and purposes of Muslim unity: Pan-Islamism(s) and Muslim political activism in Interwar Europe

Author: Andrei Tirtan Date and place of PhD defense: 30 June 2020, KU Leuven. More info on dissertation available at Research Portal KU Leuven .

Neither in nor out. Former Muslims between narratives of belonging and secular convictions in The Netherlands and the UK

Author: Maria Vliek Date and place of PhD defense: 3 April 2020, Radboud University. More info on dissertation available at Radboud Repository .

The cinematic Santri: Youth culture, tradition and technology in Muslim Indonesia

Author: Ahmad Nuril Huda Date and place of PhD defense: 25 March 2020, Leiden University. More info on dissertation available at Leiden University Repository .

Mongols in Mamluk Eyes. Representing Ethnic Others in the Medieval Middle East

Author: Josephine van den Bent Date and place of PhD defense: 31 January 2020, University of Amsterdam. More info on dissertation available at  UvA-Dare .

The Hadrami Arabs of Ambon: an Ethnographic Study of Diasporic Identity Construction in Everyday Life Practices

Author: Istiqomah Date and place of PhD defense: 9 January 2020, University of Groningen. More info on dissertation available at Groningen Repository .

Unearthing Literature: The Case of Hussein Barghouti

Author: Haneen Omari Date and place of PhD defense: 29 October 2019, Leiden University. More info on dissertation available at Leiden University Repository .

Het Bijbelse referentiekader van de contemporaine Nederlandse vertalers van de Koran

Author: Tijani Boulaouali Date and place of PhD defense: 28 October 2019, KU Leuven. More info on dissertation available at Research Portal KU Leuven .

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Allegiance and Authority in the Poetical Discourse of Muhammad’s Lifetime

Author: Marije Coster Date and place of PhD defense: 18 April 2019, University of Groningen. More info on dissertation available at Groningen repository.

Languages of Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia: institutional discourses, community strategies and missionary rhetoric

Author: Gulnaz Sibgatullina Date and place of PhD defense: 20 February 2019, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden University Repository .

No Man’s Land: Gender and Sexuality in Erotic Narratives of the Late Ottoman Empire

Author: Müge Özoglu Date and place of PhD defense: 5 December 2018, Leiden University Full text available via Open Access Leiden University .

‘For Women Only’: Gender Segregation, Islam, and Modernity in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait

Author: Annemarie van Geel Date and place of PhD defense: 28 June 2018, Radboud University Nijmegen Full text available via Radboud Repository .

Women Who Run With The Wolves. Online stories and roles of Spanish-speaking jihadist women

Author: Claudia Carvalho Date and place of PhD defense: 19 June 2018, Tilburg University Full text available via Tilburg University Research Portal.

Purification of Hearts

Author: M. Amer Date and place of PhD defense: 6 March 2018, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Full text available via Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Research Portal .

La popularité de Tariq Ramadan au Maroc

Author: Ellen van de Bovenkamp Date and place of PhD defense: 5 December 2017, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Full text available via VU-DARE .

Reconstructing Ethiopia’s Collective Memory by Rewriting its History: The Politics of Islam

Author: Tekalign Nega Angore Date and place of defense: 4 December 2017, Tilburg University Full text available via Tilburg University Research Portal.

The making of Islami economics : an epistemological inquiry into Islam’s moral economic teachings, legal discourse, and Islamization process

Author: Sami AlDaghistani Date and place of PhD defense: 30 November 2017, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden Repository .

The Journey of a Taymiyyan Sufi: Sufism Through the Eyes of ʿImād al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Wāsiṭī (d. 711/1311)

Author: Arjan Post Date and place of PhD defense: 27 November 2017, University of Utrecht. Full text available via Utrecht University Repository .

Water en de Kom. Sociaal denken en handelen van kaderleden van de Turkse moskeeorganisatie Milli Görüş Amsterdam-West

Author: Hasan Yar Date and place of PhD defense: 17 November 2017, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Full text available via Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Research Portal .

NIẒᾹM KᾹMIL WA-SHᾹMIL: The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt As reflected in al-da‘wa and liwā’ al-’islām (1976-1981 1987-1988)

Author: Kiki Santing Date and place of PhD defense: 29 June 2017, University of Groningen. More info on dissertation available at Groningen repository .

Dissonant Voices: Islam-inspired music in Morocco and the politics of religious sentiments

Author: Nina ter Laan Date and place of PhD defense: 19 December 2016, Radboud University. Full text available via Radboud Repository .

Cosmopolis of Law: Islamic legal ideas and texts across the Indian Ocean and Eastern Mediterranean Worlds

Author: Mahmood Kooriadathodi Date and place of PhD defense: 14 December 2016, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden Repository .

The Afterlife in Mind: Piety and Renunciatory Practice in the 2nd/8th- and early 3rd/9th-Century Books of Renunciation (Kutub al-Zuhd)

Author: Yunus Yaldiz Date and place of PhD defense: 17 October 2016, Utrecht University. Full text available via Utrecht University Repository .

Shi’i Muslim youth in the Netherlands: Negotiating Shi’i fatwas and rituals in the Dutch context

Author: Annemeik Schlatmann Date and place of PhD defense: 6 June 2016, Utrecht University. No full text available.

The religious polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia: Identity and religious authority in Mudejar Islam

Author: Mònica Colominas Aparicio Date and place of PhD defense: 29 April 2016, University of Amsterdam. Partial text available via UvA-DARE .

Shared questions, diverging answers: Muḥammad ʿAbduh and his interlocutors on “religion” in a globalizing world

Author: Ammeke Kateman Date and place of PhD defense: 4 March 2016, University of Amsterdam. Partial text available via UvA-DARE

Book ownership in Ottoman Sarajevo 1707-1828

Author: Asim Zubcevic Date and place of PhD defense: 11 November 2015, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden repository .

Contesting Religious Authority: A study on Dakwah radio in Surakarta, Indonesia

Author: Sunarwoto Date and place of PhD defense: 10 November 2015, Tilburg University. Full text available via Tilburg University research portal .

Seeing God in This World and the Otherworld: Crossing Boundaries in Sufi Commentaries on the Qurʿān

Author: Pieter Coppens Date and place of PhD defense: 11 September 2015, Utrecht University. No full text available.

Islamic courts and women’s divorce rights in Indonesia. The cases of Cianjur and Bulukumba

Author: Stijn van Huis Date and place of PhD defense: 8 September 2015, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden Repository .

A century of hands: work, communities, and identities among the Ayt Khebbash fossil artisans in a Moroccan Oasis

Author: Mayuka Tanabe Date and place of PhD defense: 17 June 2015, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden Repository .

“Authentic Islam” : the religious profile of Taqī al-Dīn al-Hilālī (1893-1987) as reflected in his fatwas

Author: Abdesammad El Amraoui Date and place of PhD defense: 6 May 2015, Leiden University. Full text available via Leiden Repository .

There is no doubt. Muslim scholarship and society in 17th-century Central Sudanic Africa

Author: Dorrit van Dalen Date and place of PhD defense: 22 April 2015, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Islamic divorces in Europe: Bridging the gap between European and Islamic legal orders

Author: Pauline Kruiniger Date and place of PhD defense: 17 December 2014, Maastricht University. Full text available via  Maastricht Repository .

Pakistani Marriages and the Private International Laws of Germany and England

Author: Kaiser Chaudhary Date and place of PhD defense: 22 December 2014, Maastricht University. No full text available.

Shouting in a Desert: Dutch missionary encounters with Javanese Islam, 1850-1910

Author: Maryse Kruithof Date and place of PhD defense: 11 December 2014, Erasmus University. Full text available via  Erasmus Repository .

The Islamic Bookbinding Tradition. A Book Archaeological Study

Author: Karin Scheper Date and place of PhD defense: 12 October 2014, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

The Sung home: Narrative, morality, and the Kurdish nation

Author: Akke Wendelmoet Hamelink Date and place of PhD defense: 9 October 2014, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Islamic burials in the Netherlands and Belgium. Legal, religious and social aspects

Author: Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany Date and place of PhD defense: 16 September 2014, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Speaking of home: Home and identity in the multivoiced narratives of descendants of Moroccan and Turkish migrants in the Netherlands.

Author: Femke Stock Date and place of PhD defense: 11 September 2014, University of Groningen. More info on dissertation available at Groningen Repository .

Ontmoetingen tussen Marokkaanse Nederlanders en de Marokkaanse overheid: Een antropologisch perspectief

Author: Merel Kahmann Date and place of PhD defense: 16 April 2014, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Sisters in Islam. Women’s conversion and the politics of belonging: A Dutch case study

Author: Vanessa Vroon Date and place of PhD defense: 9 April 2014, University of Amsterdam. Full text available via UvA-DARE .

The rise of a capital: On the development of al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationship with its hinterland, 18/639-132/750

Author: Jelle Bruning Date and place of PhD defense: 2 April 2014, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

‘Maybe I’m still his wife’. Transnational divorce in Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Egyptian families

Author: Iris Sportel Date and place of PhD defense: 18 February 2014, Radboud University. Full text available via  Radboud Repository .

Nurturing the Salalfi Manhaj: A Study of Salafi Pesantrens in Contemporary Indonesia

Author: Din Wahid Date and place of PhD defense: 27 January 2014, Utrecht University. Full text available via  Igitur Repository .

Salafism in Lebanon. Local and Transnational Resources

Author: Zoltan Pall Date and place of PhD defense: 14 January 2014, Utrecht University. Full text available via  Igitur Repository .

Pouvoir et territoire: L’administration islamique en Moyenne-Égypte pré-ṭūlūnide (642-868)

Author: Marie Legendre Date and place of PhD defense: 12 December 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Contesting sharia: State law, decentralization and Minangkabau custom

Author: Yasrul Huda Date and place of PhD defense: 4 December 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Female Religious Agents in Morocco: Old Practices and New Perspectives

Author: Aziza Ouguir Date and place of PhD defense: 29 November 2013, University of Amsterdam. Full text available via  UvA-DARE .

Laverend langs grenzen: Transnationale gezinnen en Nederlands en islamitisch familie- en nationaliteitsrecht

Author: Friso Kulk Date and place of PhD defense: 7 October 2013, Radboud University. Full text available via  Radboud Repository .

Family law in Syria: A plurality of laws, norms, and legal practices

Author: Esther van Eijk Date and place of PhD defense: 19 September 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Le livre décisif sur les religions et les sectes d’Ibn Hazm: Entre l’histoire du texte et la critique textuelle

Author: Samir Kaddouri Date and place of PhD defense: 18 September 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Learning to be authentic. Religious practices of German and Dutch Muslims following the Salafiyya in forums and chat rooms

Author: Carmen Becker Date and place of PhD defense: 9 September 2013, Radboud University. No full text available.

Islam and politics in Madura: Ulama and other local leaders in search of influence (1990-2010)

Author: Yanwar Pribadi Date and place of PhD defense: 28 August 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Joy and sorrow in early Muslim Egypt: Arabic papyrus letters, text and content

Author: Khaled Younes Date and place of PhD defense: 27 August 2013, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Codifying a jurist’s law: Islamic criminal legislation and Supreme Court case law in the Sudan under Numairi and Bashīr

Author: Olaf Köndgen Date and place of PhD defense: 12 June 2013, Univeristy of Amsterdam. Full text available via  UvA-DARE .

Becoming better Muslims Religious authority and ethical improvement in Aceh, Indonesia

Author: David Kloos Date and place of PhD defense: 5 January 2013, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Full text available via  VU-DARE .

After the tsunami: The remaking of everyday life in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Author: Annemarie Samuels Date and place of PhD defense: 29 November 2012, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

The State’s attitude toward Churches in the Netherlands after World War II

Author: Agnieszka Szumigalska Date and place of PhD defense: 19 October 2012, Wroclaw University/Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. No full text available.

Between History and Legend: The Biography of the Prophet Muhammad by Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī

Author: Nicolet Boekhoeff – van der Voort Date and place of PhD defense: 23 January 2012, Radboud University. Full text available via  Radboud Repository .

Islamic Criminal Law in Northern Nigeria: Politics, Religion, Judicial Practice

Author: Gunnar Weimann. Date and place of PhD defense: 15 December 2010, University of Amsterdam. Full text available via  UvA-Dare .

A quietist Jihadi-Salafi: The ideology and influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi

Author: Joas Wagemakers Date and place of PhD defense: 16 November 2010, Radboud University. Full text available via  Radboud Repository .

Rhythms and rhymes of life: Music and identification processes of Dutch-Moroccan youth

Author: Miriam Gazzah Date en place of PhD defense: 8 September 2008, Radboud University. Full text available via  Radboud Repository .

Islamic reformism and Christianity: A critical reading of the works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and his associates (1898-1935)

Author: Amr Ryad Date and place of PhD defense: 12 June 2008, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Islam and disability: Perspectives in islamic theology and jurisprudence

Author: Mohammed Ghaly Date and place of PhD defense: 27 February 2008, Leiden University. Full text available via  Leiden Repository .

Participating universities

• University of Amsterdam
• Erasmus University Rotterdam
• University of Groningen
• Leiden University
• Maastricht University
• Radboud University
• Tilburg University
• Utrecht University
• VU University Amsterdam

Partnership

• Ghent University
• Ruhr University Bochum

• Student Information System
• 360° Virtual Tour
• Ibn Haldun University
• Application - Ibn Haldun University
• School of Graduate Studies

Ph. D. in Islamic Studies (in 30% English)

Why islamic studies ph.d. at ibn haldun university.

The Ph.D. program in Islamic Studies at Ibn Haldun University, which focuses purely on social sciences, aims to educate the next generation of competent academics with a multidisciplinary view of all aspects of Islam.

In our department of Islamic Studies at the University of Ibn Haldun University, we offer courses aligned with the above principles. As a Muslim-social institution, we welcome all the different sectarian, ethnic, and religious backgrounds students of the world because we believe in diversity in a way that the civilizational paradigm can be best represented only in its academic setting where modern and traditional movements can equally be represented. Moreover, the challenges of our differences motivate us to pursue maturation, wisdom, and truth.

The university trains students to become well-qualified academics who are virtuous, respectful of the Islamic heritage, and capable of responding to present and future needs and expectations through quality education in an academic setting.

The students will use the buildings of Süleymaniye Madrasah, one of the most reputable higher education institutions of the Ottoman Empire, located in the center of the historical city of Istanbul, as a venue for education. In addition, students will be professionally prepared for academic life with various domestic and international research scholarships, project support, and institutional collaborations from many countries worldwide.

Students who qualify for the Ibn Haldun University Ph.D. program in Islamic Studies will be able to attend free English or Turkish preparatory classes, receive lectures and private seminars from professors who are some of the best in their respective fields, and attain basic skills to understand the significant texts of classical Arabic and Islamic disciplines of knowledge taught in the extracurricular Honor Program. In addition, they will be well-equipped to comprehend the literature in their fields in Arabic, English, and Turkish.

Within this discipline, the Ph.D. candidates will conduct research and presentations, publish work and take firm steps toward the academic world, look to the future with confidence, and make a name for themselves in the international academic community.

About Program

Head of the department:.

Assist. Prof. İhsan Kahveci

Objectives of the Program:

The purpose of the Ph.D. The program in Islamic Studies is to develop Islamic studies both in our country and in the world and to expand the scope of influence by obtaining essential outcomes from these studies on the national and international levels. In addition, the program aims to train academics capable of correctly identifying fundamental problems and producing real solutions in line with our priorities.

• To equip students with advanced knowledge and research skills in Islamic Studies.
• To meet the advanced academic and scientific needs of students interested in academic studies following their undergraduate studies and to strengthen their language skills.
• To meet the needs of qualified researchers and academics in Turkey and abroad.
• To adopt an interdisciplinary approach in line with these goals
• To understand Ibn Haldun's scholarly heritage in the field of Islamic Studies in its intellectual integrity and adapt it to present-day context.
• Follow the qualified literature in Islamic Studies written in Western and Eastern languages.
• Train students academically to join the faculty staff of prestigious national and international universities.

Scope of the Program:

The scope of the Ph.D. program in Islamic Studies covers the following areas:

• Islamic Law

Application Requirements

Visit Ph.D. Programs Application Requirements page.

Teaching Staff

Visit the department page for Teaching Staff.

Curriculum and Course Contents

Visit the curriculum page.

Course Contents

Bis 600e seminar.

This course covers the basic principles of research methods, developing a thesis proposal, and thesis writing processes. The compulsory course for doctoral students includes presentations of visiting academics from the university and different universities in Turkey and abroad. Within the scope of the course, each student will be required to prepare a seminar on Islamic Studies and make a presentation in the classroom. The seminar is a non-credit course. Students will be evaluated as "Successful" or "Unsuccessful" at the end of the semester. Students must attend 70% of the seminar course. Students who do not make a presentation or fulfill the attendance requirement are considered unsuccessful in this course.

BIS 601E Scientific Research Techniques and Publication Ethics

The course focuses on two main areas in Islamic studies: scientific methodology and publication ethics. It provides the training for doctoral students to handle a research problem from beginning to end, using scientific methods and the ways to publish research results following publication ethics in different publishing platforms. In this way, students will be allowed to apply what they have learned in a theoretical framework to the subject of their choice in Islamic studies while increasing their awareness of various types of resources to be used during their studies.

ELECTIVE COURSES

Bis 631 history of qurʾān.

This course will examine the revelation of the Qur'an, its memorization, writing, mutual reading, compilation, copying, arrangement, punctuation, vocalization, translation, and orientalist claims of alteration.

BIS 632 History of Tafsīr

In this course, the status of Prophet Mohammed during the Qurʾānic revelation period, the Qurʾānic interpretive activities of the first three generations after Ṣahābah; Mecca, Medina, and Iraqi tafsīr schools, transfer character, and codification of tafsīr material will be covered. Furthermore, the formation process of the earliest written works in tafsīr, the transition to the earliest comprehensive texts of tafsīr, the character of the tafsīr works in terms of riwāyah and dirāyah, the effect of commentators' creed on commentary works, classification of commentators according to different criteria, the commentators according to Islamic lands and geography, commentary in the Ottoman period, the nature of comments made at the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century will be examined.

BIS 633 Tafsīr al-Riwāyah

In this course, the following topics are covered: the nature and character of the narrations in terms of Qurʾānic commentary conveyed from the Prophet, Companions, and Successors; the soundness of the narrations; the weakness in the narrations; the way the exegetes use narrations in commentaries and their approach to narrations; concepts of riwāyah and dirāyah in tafsīr; tafsīr narrations works, predominantly narrative tafsīr works, and their characteristics; the use of narration in dirāyah tafsīr; the importance of narrations in understanding the Qurʾān.

BIS 634 Tafsīr al-Dirāyah

In this course, the topics are as follows: the concept of dirāyah in tafsīr; the relation of dirāyah tafsīr to the ra'y and ijtihād; the main elements of dirāyah tafsīr; the dirāyah tafsīr books; the influence of the sectarian and practical views on dirāyah tafsīr; the relation of scientific, social, and mystic interpretation to dirāyah tafsīr.

BIS 635 Problems of Tafsīr

The topics of the course are as follows: the interpretation of selective verses in the Qurʾān and narrations related to the revelation of the Qurʾān; repeated revelation (mukarrar); abrogation; mutashābihāt; the incident of Gharāniq; Mushkil al-Qurʾān; the eternality of hell; verses about women; verses of jihād; verses about miracles; verses about punishments; the scientific commentary; reincarnation in the classical and modern times.

BIS 636 Thematic Tafsīr

Thematic tafsīr course selects a theme that recurs in various verses and surahs of the Qurʾān. The course is focused on systematically assessing the related verses and presents a broad understanding of the Qurʾān on that selected thematic subject. The subject examined may relate to beliefs, social or individual life concerns, or philosophical considerations.

BIS 637 Aḥkām al-Qurʾān

In this course, firstly, the commentators of the judicial verses of the Qurʾān and their works are introduced, then examples from the judicial verses of the Qurʾān are dealt with in terms of language and content. Finally, the interpretations and analyses of the commentators of judicial verses are examined.

BIS 638 Contemporary Approaches to Qurʾān

This course focuses on issues regarding the language-centered, the semantic, the historical, the hermeneutic, the thematic approaches, the feminist discourse, and the Qurʾānite Islam in a critical examination.

BIS 641 Naqd al-Isnad

The course presents the development of the methodology of critiquing ḥadīth narrations throughout the centuries and the conditions for a ḥadīth to be authenticated concerning its chain of narrators. The course also focuses on the efforts of the Companions and the scholars of ḥadīth in setting and applying the standards for establishing a ḥadīth. The course studies the development of the methodology of al-sanad (chain of narrators) critique throughout history and discusses the efforts of Muslim scholars to develop the ability to understand and evaluate chains of narrators. The course addresses the definition of al-sanad and its significance, the conditions for a chain of narrators to be authenticated, and the sciences related to critiquing the chain of narrators. Finally, it introduces the literature of al- Jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl, its history and level of narrators, and the names of narrators and their countries of origin.

BIS 642 Naqd al-Matn

Textual criticism of ḥadīth refers to the assessment of the text by comparing its content to information obtained through other sources of knowledge, which delivers certainty or a high level of doubt, such as reason, human senses or observation, and information derived from verses in the Qurʾān and the accounts in Sunnah. During this course, students will discuss and analyze with the course lecturer the commentaries of the earlier Muhaddithūn (e.g., al-Shāfi'i, al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, and others), rules developed by the Usūliyyūn that involve the critique of the Sunnah, standards set by late scholars in this regard, topics and questions raised by Muslim authors on this issue, and criticisms of orientalists towards the Muhaddithūn in this respect.

BIS 643 ‘Ulūm al-Ḥadīth

The course focuses on critical issues such as the historical development of 'Ulūm al-Ḥadīth, the problems of setting its terminology, disagreements among scholars about its concepts, its influence on Islamic jurisprudence and ḥadīth literature. The course also addresses the essential contributions in the scholarly tradition of the field within the modern period. Additionally, it details the different Islamic schools of thought concerning their relationship with the methodology; means of compilation, and preservation of ḥadīth; as well as the method of assessing the fabricated reports in classical books; the occasion, and the context of ḥadīth (Sabab Wurūd al-ḥadīth) and its influence on textual interpretations. Finally, the classical methodology will be examined comparatively with modern critiques.

BIS 644 Ikhtilāf al-Ḥadīth

Ikhtilāf refers to a textual divergence in ḥadīth literature, such as when an authentic ḥadīth seemingly contradicts another authentic ḥadīth or other Islamic rulings. Furthermore, it is expected to find differences between certain ḥadīths as they address different people and subject matters in various historical, social, and cultural contexts. For instance, some ḥadīths were reported during wartime, famine, and other extraordinary circumstances. In short, this course's objective is to understand "what was said" (ḥadīth) by placing it in its historical, sociological, and realistic context and to stand against the criticism due to a literal interpretation of the ḥadīth based on a sole literal understanding.

BIS 645 Schools of Ulum al-Hadith

This course examines Islamic schools' contributions to the sciences of ḥadīth, such as Mu'tazilah, Khawārij, and particularly Shi'a. The Shi'a branch has nearly 200 million followers today. This branch has developed its methodology concerning ḥadīth sciences based on a deep-seated madrasa tradition. The course studies the system of ḥadīth evaluation of the sects mentioned above via comparative study, in which the outcome will reveal similarities and differences and their impact on the ḥadīth literature. Inductive, analytic, critical, and comparative methods are applied during the course.

BIS 646 Ḥadīth Commentaries

This course examines the historical motives behind the unique commentaries of ḥadīth interpretation activities before the systematic commentaries period. The course also focuses on the geography of the comments and the changes in the proceeding periods as well as the effects in their content caused by these changes, the impact of sectarian tendencies, and in what way the commentaries interacted with each other, analyzing the role of ḥadīth interpretation played by this interaction. The course also provides information about outstanding works and authors. Finally, it also offers an in-class reading activity of selected texts from significant results to achieve a general picture of their profile.

BIS 647 Contemporary Discussions in Hadith

This course examines the nature of contemporary debates about ḥadīth in the modern world, its epistemological basis and relations to the proposed allegations in the classical times of Islamic history, as well as its dimensions related to the nature of the modern age. The course focuses on the fact that an accurate perception of Islam cannot be realized without the sound perception of ḥadīth. The consistency of the ḥadīth critique of the modern era critique is investigated by analyzing its positive and negative aspects and discussing solutions to its related problems. In this regard, the course covers several controversial concepts such as the absolute and the relative, the trustworthiness of the Companions, recited and unrecited revelation, the religious value of the Prophet's behaviors, and objections of Shi'a, etc.

BIS 648 Contemporary Hadith Works

Western scholars of Islam have developed their genres. Their studies in major Western languages have influenced the West and the ḥadīth studies in the Muslim world. This course deals with issues such as Orientalism, its origin, various stages of its development, objectives, methods, approach, text criticism, and the most prominent orientalists in the field,  and their main arguments against the authenticity of ḥadīth.

BIS 650 Ilal al-Hadith

This course covers essential books written in Ilal al-Hadith and examines disputed issues. It also focuses on the contributions of the scholars in this field and aims to ground issues and solve some related problems.

BIS 651 Fuqaha Legal Thought

Usūl al-fiqh is a judicial field established to determine the methods that scholars use as the basis for reaching jurisprudential conclusions, formed through two primary ways: Fuqahā (jurists) and Mutakallimūn (theologians). Therefore, the central axis of this course is the elaborate presentation of the characteristics, historical development, boundaries, and methodology of jurists' thoughts of usūl. In addition, to establish a substantial knowledge of the literature, the essential texts of jurists' study of usūl, such as al-Fusūl fi al-usūl, Taqwīm al-Adillah, Kanz al-Wuṣūl ilā Maʿrifah al-Uṣūl, Kashf al-Asrār, Mirqāt al-Wusūl, and Majāmi' al- Ḥaqāiq will be covered and analyzed linguistically and contextually. This course will allow the students to grasp the particulars of jurists' literature and a holistic perspective of the fabric of ideas of their contemporary times through these texts.

BIS 652 Mutakallimūn Legal Thought

Mutakallimūn's legal thought constitutes one of the main components of Usūl al-fiqh. This course covers the characteristics of the usūl of Mutakallimūn and its historical process. Advanced texts of usūl of Mutakallimūn from different periods, such as al-Lumʿa, al-Burhān, al-Mustaṣfā, Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ will be analyzed. Thus, after this course, the researchers will be familiar with the primary sources of Usūl of Mutakallimūn and have a holistic perspective regarding the linguistic and contextual features of the related texts.

BIS 653 Islamic Family Law

As the smallest building unit of Islamic society, the family involves significant legal and ethical rules. This course covers the provisions of family law as structured in two primary sections. The marriage contract and its legal consequences will be examined in the first section. The elements and conditions of the marriage contract, the obstructions in marriage, the issue of equivalence, mahr, and alimony in the context of women's economic rights, muwaqqāt, and muṭʿah marriages and their consequences within the scope of void marriages will be discussed in details. In the second section, the termination of the marriage contract; the types of divorce; situations where there is no internal will; the legal consequences of divorce, such as 'iddah waiting; alimony, and ruling of inheritance, will be covered in general. In addition, while these issues are examined, how these topics are taken up and processed in the relevant sections of the furū' al-fiqh literature will be analyzed by considering the historical process.

BIS 654 Islamic Theory of Contract

The basis of a transaction, either unilateral or bilateral, is the expression of intention involving a legal result. In this course, it is pursued how meaning evolves to be a contract, so the theoretical structure of the contract will be analyzed. The formation process of the agreement, its elements, and requirements will be elaborated as a coherent theory. The course will give the researchers a sound understanding of the Islamic contract theory based on the Qurʾān, Sunnah, and Islamic legal scholarship.

BIS 655 Al-Ahkam Al-Sultaniyyah

Aḥkām al-Sultaniyyah refers to literature in classical Islamic law in the sense of "provisions concerning state administration." In this course, the subjects related to public law will be covered in the context of Islamic law, considering the historical process in which the related issues took place. The course will also focus on the theories that Abul Hasan al- Māwardī, Abū Yaʿlā al-Farrā, and Ibn Khāldun put forward in their well-known works al-Aḥkām al-Sultaniyyah and al-Muqaddimah. Thus, the provisions of state administration in Islamic law will be analyzed and discussed in detail.

BIS 656 Maqasid Al-Shari’ah

This course will cover the foundations of the Maqasid idea, its conceptualization, and its place in the literature, in addition to analyzing the importance and function of maqāṣid by focusing on the basic concepts and issues. A critical evaluation of Maqāṣid al-Shari̅’ah, which has become one of the fundamental concepts of Islamic law in the reform and reforming efforts, will be made, and the relevance of the concepts used in these discourses will be tested.

BIS 657 Ottoman Legal System

The Ottoman state's strategic position, together with its diverse subjects from different nations and a strong representation of Islamic geography, had made it possible for its legal system to develop. This course will cover the structure and function of the state in the Ottoman period and the application of various branches of law, such as punishment, debts, family, waqf, and inheritance, by distinguishing religious and customary law. In addition, the breakdown and the changes after the Tanzimāt (Ottoman reform movement) period will be covered with the history of the Majallah and Decree of Family Law.

BIS 658 Contemporary Fiqh Issues

The rapid progress of technological developments in the modern age brings many problems. However, science and technology are a matter of empirical knowledge and a part of our world of values. This course will analyze the jurisprudential issues that Muslims have confronted in the last few centuries and the proposed solutions comparatively. The course provides a critical perspective by analyzing modern problems that arose, especially in health, economics, and food.

BIS 661 Concept of Knowledge in Kalām

In this course, the theory of knowledge, which is one of the epistemological problems of 'Ilm al-Kalām, will be discussed, and after searching for an answer to the question of "what is knowledge?" topics like the problem of defining knowledge, contingency, sources, and types of knowledge, ways of learning (asbāb al 'ilm), power of the mind and its limits, kashf, value of ilhām (divine inspiration) and dream as a source of knowledge, knowledge of senses and their matter, evidence and its types will be covered.

BIS 662 God's Divinity in Kalam

In this course, the main theological problems of 'ilm al-kalām concerning God's divinity, such as ithbāt al-wājib ('proof of the Necessary Being'), and oneness (tawhīd), God's essential (ḏātī)  and positive (thubūtī) attributes as well as action (fiʿlī), informative (kẖabarī) relationship between the ism (name) and the musammā (named), kalāmullah and the creativeness of the Qurʾān will be addressed.

BIS 663 Concept of Cosmos in Kalām

This course deals with topics of the classical period of theologically natural philosophy as the formation of the universe, universe designs, creation theories, attributes, substances, matter, aql, and nafs that are among the cosmological problems of 'Ilm al-Kalām and the relationship between atomic universe model in kalām and related modern scientific cosmological models will be discussed.

BIS 664 Prophethood and Afterlife in Kalām

The following topics are discussed in this course: the prophethood and the eschatological questions of 'ilm al-kalām such as the possibility of prophethood and its necessity; revelation; attributes of prophets; miracles; karāmāt, supernaturality; the creed of al-mahdī and al-masīh; angels; satan; jinns; holy books; the signs of the day of judgment' punishment of the grave; al-ba'th (resurrection); al-ḥashr (gathering), al-maḥshar, al-ḥasāb, al-suāl, al-mīzān (the scale), al-ṣirāt, al-a'rāf, salvation, heaven, hell, repentance.

BIS 665 Mutazilite Kalam

In this course, topics that both form the main principles of the Mu'tazilī school and the al-usūl al-khamsa, which refers to the five principles of faith: Tawḥīd, al-ʿadl, al-wa'd, and al-wa'id, al-manzila bayn al-manzilatayn, al-amr bi al-maʿrūf wa al-nahy ʿan al-munkar (the urging of right and prohibition of wrong) will be addressed within the scope of Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsa, the magnum opus of Qādī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, a prominent Muʿtazilī theologian of Basra Muʿtazilism.

BIS 666 Faith Problems in Our Age

In this course, the focus is given on the possible solutions by the Muslim world that are offered with the perspective of 'ilm al-kalām against the criticisms arising from Physics, Biology, as well as epistemology driven movements such as Agnosticism, Atheism, Deism, Darwinism, Freudism, Materialism, Positivism, Spiritualism, Nihilism, Polytheism, Reincarnation, Satanism and their corresponding criticisms, including the modern problems such as the Problem of Evil, Women's Rights, Human rights and Democracy, the relation between Religion and Science, Religion and link to the mind.

BIS 667 Criticisms Directed to Kalam

The criticisms directed against kalām from inside and outside in terms of their methodology and underlying motives will be dealt with in this course and within this context. Criticisms of the scholars, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, (d. 241/855), ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad Anṣārī al-Harawī, Ibn Ḥׅazm (d. 450/1064), al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111), Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728/1328), Ibn Khaldun (d. 808/1406), Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) and Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988) directed to 'ilm al-kalām, and the ideas that are propounded in the reconstruction of kalām will be discussed.

BIS 668 Kalām Studies in West

In this course, the studies in the West on Islamic theology and a selection of works of Western philosophers such as W. Montgomery Watt, A. Stanley Tritton, De Lacy O'Leary, H. Austryn Wolfson, Louis Gardet, and Georges Anawati will be discussed.

BIS 681 Methodology of the History of Ṣūfism

History of Ṣūfism is a field of study using history and Islamic studies methodologies. This course's primary goal is to achieve a field survey formation that involves primary sources, archives, manuscripts, and current studies.

BIS 682 Ṣūfism in Non-Anatolian Geographies

This course concentrates on mystic orders and Ṣūfism in non-Anatolian regions such as the Middle East, Khorasān, the Far East, the Maghreb, and Africa and offers an opportunity to recognize the lesser-studied orders in Turkey.

BIS 683 Ṣūfism and Ṣūfī Orders in Anatolia

Anatolia's Ṣūfī orders differ from those in other parts of the Islamic world in certain aspects. In particular, the period of Islamization of Anatolia is unique. This course examines the Ṣūfism of these orders and their backgrounds.

BIS 684 Persian Ṣūfī Texts

This course examines the texts produced in Persian, one of the main languages of Ṣūfī literature. It offers an opportunity to become acquainted with the Ṣūfī thought of Iran, Anatolia and Khorasān regions.

BIS 685 Readings from Fusus al-Hikam

This course is an introduction to Ibn Arabi's thought through his groundbreaking work, offering an opportunity for young researchers to recognize Ibn Arabi's terminology, his followers, and Fusūs commentators.

BIS 686 Contemporary Ṣūfī Movements

The course will cover the Ṣūfī movements in the contemporary world, especially the new formations in the West. The researcher will find opportunities to recognize the religious trends, their leading figures, and their works originating from the Islamic world, including the mainstream and mystical movements synthesized in various religions.

BIS 687 Ottoman Ṣūfī Thought

Since the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, Ṣūfism has expanded overtime via new formations and Ṣūfī thinkers. The course introduces the leading names, and founding works of Ottoman Ṣūfī thought.

BIS 688 Critiques of Sufism

Critics have been directed against Ṣūfism, which has been disputed since its early days. The subject of this course is these criticisms that are in part doctrinal, practical, and based on modern science and philosophy.

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Department of Religious Studies

Islamic studies, general description.

For more detailed information on the Islamic studies field, see the remarks of Carl Ernst on “ Graduate Admission Information for Islamic Studies at UNC .”

In addition to the requirement of two modern research languages, all students must develop proficiency in at least one Islamicate language (usually Arabic, Persian, Turkish, or Urdu) before taking the Doctoral Examinations. Additional languages may be required by the faculty in the field, and the student’s advisor, depending on the research trajectory of the student.

Doctoral Examinations

All Ph.D. candidates will be expected to pass a set of four Doctoral Examinations. Program faculty members, in consultation with the student, will determine the topics of the examinations based upon the individual needs and interests of the student. In general, written exams will cover the following areas:

• A formulation and interrogation of a problematic in Islamic studies , which both defines and critically examines a series of issues that connect major categories of Islamic thought and practice (e.g., Sufism and reformism, gender studies and the methodologies of Islamic law, Qur’an and literary theory, Shi`ism and performance theory).
• Theory and methodology of Islamic studies , focusing on the general historiography of the field as well as the ways in which scholars in others disciplines (such as anthropology) and in previously marginalized sub-fields (such as Islam in America or Shi`ism) have sought to reconstruct its boundaries.
• The religious history of one geographic region , usually the region in which the student expects to do field research (including, for example, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, or North America). This exam is implicitly comparative in approach, since it requires dealing with non-Muslim religious traditions in the region of choice.
• A thematic examination , focusing on a particular subfield of Islamic studies (such as Sufism, Islamic philosophical and political thought, Qur’anic studies, or Islamic rituals).

Upon completion of the written exams, the student will take an oral examination based primarily on issues raised in the written exams.

Special Resources

One feature of the program is its close cooperation with the Islamic studies faculty from  The Department of Religion at Duke University , located just ten miles from Chapel Hill. Graduate students from both programs regularly participate in joint graduate seminars and informal reading groups, and ask faculty from both universities to serve on their examination and Ph.D. committees.

Additional resources for the comparative study of Islam in the area include the following:

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies programs at UNC and in the Triangle are coordinated by the  UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies , housed in the  Global Education Center .  The Middle East Center collaborates with the Duke University Middle East Center to form the Consortium for Middle East Studies  at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a federally funded Title VI National Resource Center. Another affiliated resource is the  Duke Islamic Studies Center .

University of North Carolina Press  has launched a  book series  on Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks edited by Bruce Lawrence and Carl Ernst.

Core Faculty

• Youssef Carter
• Carl W. Ernst
• Juliane Hammer
• Waleed Ziad

Associated Faculty

• Jodi Magness

Affiliated Faculty

• Charles Kurzman , Sociology (UNC)
• Omid Safi , Asian & ME Studies (Duke)

Click here to return to the description of the Ph.D. program.

Virtual Library Services & Resources for Teaching, Learning, and Research: Middle East & Islamic Studies: Dissertations & Theses

• Course Materials / Textbooks
• Searching for ebooks
• Academic Journals & Periodicals
• Dissertations & Theses
• Specialized Subject Encyclopedias & Dictionaries
• Databases for Research
• Primary Sources (Original Docs.)
• Government Documents & Resources
• Manuscripts & Archives
• News Sources (Current & Historical)
• Streaming Media

Tools * Methods

* Zotero Group Library on “how to write a dissertation” and other topics of interest to graduate students: *Grab your research with a single click. *A personal research assistant. *Store anything.

• Writing and Presenting Your Dissertation or Thesis : detailed outline of proposal, writing and thesis presentation.
• How to Organise Your Thesis : a succinct coverage of the postgraduate thesis process.
• How to Write a PhD Thesis : practical advice on the problems of getting started, getting organized and dividing the task into less formidable pieces.
• Writing Your Dissertation? - Academic Dissertation Help
• The modern researcher / Barzun, Jacques, 1907-2012. New York, Harcourt, Brace [1957]
• The craft of research / Booth, Wayne C., autho. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
• Doing qualitative research   / Silverman, David, 1943- authorLondon ; Thousand Oaks, California ; New Delhi ; Singapore : SAGE Publications Ltd, [2013]

Middle East & Islam Theses

• Dissertation Abstracts Recent Dissertations related to the Middle East, the Arab World and Islam.
• Islamic Studies Theses via EthOS (UK) Full-Text Doctoral Dissertations on Middle East and Islamic Studies Available Free. Free download of theses after registering (free). "Almost all UK universities make their theses available through the Service."  [ Digital islam: Theses on EThOS Selected doctoral theses (860) in Islamic Studies from UK Higher Education Institutes.]

Supreme Council of Universities (Egypt). Egyptian Universities’ Libraries Consortium . Theses & "Draft Theses"

Masters and PhD of Egyptian researchers

Theses under study in Egyptian universities

Osmanlı Edebiyatı Bibliyografyası Veritabanı - The Online Bibliography of Ottoman-Turkish Literature , a free and extensive database of references to theses, books, articles, papers and projects relating to research into Ottoman-Turkish culture. Please visit the Turkish version of this site if your first language is Turkish. 

Bibliography of Doctoral Dissertations in English on Arabic-Western Literary Relations, 1902-1997

THESES & DISSERTATIONS MIDDLE EAST STUDIES (University of Utah Marriott Library) Circulating copies of the theses and dissertations listed below are available in the University of Utah Marriott Library. Non-circulating copies of all Middle East Studies theses and dissertations, dating back to 1972, are available for review at the Middle East Center.

Morocco - Toubk@l In French. "catalogue national des thèses et mémoires" Database of citations. Includes abstracts but not full text of the theses. Theses are from Moroccan universities and universities outside Morocco.Produced by the Institut Marocain de l'lnformation Scientifique et Technique (IMIST)." http://toubkal.imist.ma/

Al Manhal "Al manhal database (online theses) aims at promoting the consultation and downloading of theses, dissertations defended by members of the juries from different countries. Thanks to the services offered by the different cyber-theses and thesaurus of many universities, we put at the disposal of the researchers a huge number of considerable documents without geographically being limited to the Arab World and Turkey." [The Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis. University of Tunis; The Cairo faculty of Letters; Cairo University. King Saoud University(KSA); King Abdu Aziz University (KSA)].

Laura Bier Dissertations in Middle East Studies from 2000-2007

Dissertations on al-Ghazali

General Guides to Dissertations & Theses

• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses With more than 2 million entries, PQD&T is the single, central, authoritative resource for information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses. Dissertations published from 1980 forward include 350-word abstracts written by the author. Master's theses published from 1988 forward include 150-word abstracts. UMI offers over 1.8 million titles for purchase in microfilm or paper formats. More than 600,000 are available in native or image PDF formats for immediate free download. Coverage begin in 1861 to the present.
• Foreign Doctoral Dissertations --Center for Research Libraries NO LONGER UPDATED. The collection includes doctoral dissertations submitted to institutions outside the U.S. and Canada. The range of years includes mid-19th century through the present, with the greatest concentration in the late 19th, early 20th c.
• Find Open Access Dissertations and Theses

Other aggregations of open access dissertations:

• EThOS - Electronic Theses Online Service
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal
• List of sources of the scientific search engine BASE
• List of Institutional Repositories
• UNESCO Clearinghouse of Electronic Theses and Dissertations "A database of institutions (universities, libraries, computing centers, publishing houses, etc. with ETD [ electronic theses and dissertations ] projects ), experts in the field of ETD, and technical and educational materials availabe on the Web to support and disseminate ETD." http://www.eduserver.de/unesco/
• UNESCO Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations For institutions interested in producing e-theses. "a resource for graduate students who are writing theses or dissertations, for graduate faculty who want to mentor ETD authors, for graduate deans who want to initiate ETD programs, and for IT administrators at universities." http://etdguide.org/
• Center for Research Libraries. Foreign Doctoral Dissertations Database CRL, in Chicago, has more than 750,000 foreign doctoral dissertations (from the U.K., France, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, etc. ). Members may borrow dissertations. Description of program Use the Keyword (or Author, Institution, Title, etc.) search. http://www-apps.crl.edu/catalog/dissertationSearch.asp
• Database of African Theses and Dissertations "The DATAD database contains citations and abstracts for theses and dissertations completed in African universities. The launching database includes works from all subject areas in ten leading universities and include abstracts written by the authors." Register to see selected brief citations. Full access requires a subscription. Participating universities are from Cameroun, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe. On the web site of the Association of African Universities based in Accra, Ghana. http://www.aau.org/?q=datad
• Memoire Online . In French. Full text of Memoires completed at African and French universities. Some examples follow. Based in Paris, France. http://www.memoireonline.com/
• Fichier Central des Thèses Database of doctoral theses in progress in French universities and higher educational establishments. "More than 80 institutions are partners of the Fichier central des theses which records approximately 9000 annually subjects of doctoral theses. The database is continually being updated. The Fichier central des thèses is of vital importance to postgraduate students both in choosing their research topic and in discovering work being done on related topics." Disciplines covered: Humanities and Arts, Languages and Cultural Studies, Anthropology, History, Geography, Linguistics, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Education, Sociology, Theology and Religious Studies, Law, Political Studies, Politics and International Relations, Business and Economics." Maintained by Université Paris X Nanterre, France. http://fct.u-paris10.fr/
• Dissertation Reviews Founded in 2010, Dissertation Reviews is a site that features overviews of recently defended, unpublished doctoral dissertations in a wide variety of disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences. Offers readers a glimpse of each discipline’s immediate present by focusing on the window of time between dissertation defense and first book publication. Each review provides a summary of the author’s main arguments, the historiographic genealogy in which the author operates, and the main source bases for his or her research. The reviews are also anticipatory, making educated assessments of how the research will advance or challenge our understanding of major issues in the field when it is revised and published in the future. Dissertation Reviews also features reviews of and guides to archives, libraries, databases, and other collections where such dissertation research was conducted, to help scholars improve their ability to undertake current and future research.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) International organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations. The website provides topics: how to find, create, and preserve ETDs; how to set up an ETD program; legal and technical questions; and the latest news and research in the ETD community.
• Google Scholar  Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
• << Previous: Academic Journals & Periodicals
• Next: Specialized Subject Encyclopedias & Dictionaries >>
• Last Updated: Aug 23, 2024 2:48 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/RemoteMideastIslamServices

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PhD Program Information

 The Institute of Islamic Studies offers two (2) PhD programs: a general PhD in Islamic Studies, and a PhD in Islamic Studies – Gender and Women’s Studies Concentration .

As per Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Ph.D. students must have a supervisory committee consisting of at least one faculty member in addition to the supervisor(s).

The PhD supervisory committee of students in the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) will consist of a supervisor (or two co-supervisors) and one additional faculty member, who is a member or associate member of the IIS. This additional committee member meets with the student on a regular basis to provide guidance and constructive feedback on the student’s research. The selection of this additional committee member is done with the mutual agreement of the student, the supervisor(s), and the GPD.

A) PhD Degree in Islamic Studies

To be granted a PhD degree in Islamic Studies all students must meet the following degree requirements :

Islamic Studies: Exploration of research materials in Islamic Studies, including intellectual output of Islamic civilization, compositions, Arabic nomenclature, Arabic script and transliteration systems, published and unpublished materials (theses, manuscripts, books printed by lithography, facsimile editions, monographic, serial, e-publishing), websites, databases; major reference books (bibliographies, encyclopedias, handbooks, online/published catalogues, language/biographical dictionaries).

Offered by: Islamic Studies

• Compulsory for M.A. students; recommended for Ph.D. students
• Prashant Keshavmurthy
• Completion of 3 years of Arabic or Persian language study at the Institute, unless proficiency is proven via a test administered by the academic staff. * Note: If an introductory-level course is taken, it will not count toward the 30 credits.
• In addition to Arabic or Persian, 2 years of language study at the IIS of another Islamic language, unless exempt.
• Comprehensive examinations in three specified fields ( ISLA 701 Comprehensive Examination , no credits).
• A dissertation judged to contain original research.
• Upon approval of the dissertation, a "Pass" must be received at the final oral defense examination.

With the permission of the Institute, up to 6 credits could be taken in other departments at McGill or other institutions.

With the approval of the student's supervisory committee, courses taken with an IIS faculty member in other departments (i.e., History, Anthropology, Political Science) can count toward the coursework requirements in the same way as ISLA courses.

To avoid over-specialization, a maximum of 9 credits of content courses (i.e., courses that are not primarily devoted to language instruction) can be taken with a single Institute professor.

B) PhD Degree in Islamic Studies – Gender and Women’s Studies Concentration

The Graduate Option in Gender and Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary program for students who meet degree requirements in Islamic Studies (and other participating departments and faculties) who wish to earn 9 credits of approved coursework focusing on gender and women’s studies, and issues in feminist research and methods. The student’s PhD thesis must be on a topic centrally relating to issues of gender and/or women’s studies.  

To be granted a PhD degree in Islamic Studies – Gender and Women’s Studies Concentration all students must meet the following degree requirements :

1. 30 credits of courses (beyond the MA level), including:

• Two 600- or 700-level seminars offered by the Institute

Women's Studies: Examination of feminist theories and research methods from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Offered by: Inst for Gender, Sex & Fem St

• Alexandra D Ketchum

Women's Studies: Discussion and development of participants' research in gender and women's studies.

• Prerequisite: WMST 601 .
• Restriction: Must be enrolled in the Option in Gender and Women's Studies.
• Winter 2025
• There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024 academic year
• One 3-credit course with a substantive focus on women and/or gender

Application for PhD degree click here for more details.

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Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations PhD, MPhil

Awards: PhD, MPhil

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations

Introduction to Postgraduate Study at the University of Edinburgh

Join us online on 25 September to learn more about Scotland, the city of Edinburgh and postgraduate study at the University.

Find out more and register

Research profile

In this research area, you can pursue interdisciplinary study of Islamic thought and practice, and of historical, theological, ethical and political encounters between Christianity and Islam.

Research topics

Staff research interests focus on:

• Islamic theology (kalam)
• law (shari‘a and fiqh)
• Qur’an, Hadith, and Tafsir
• Muslim views of Christianity and Judaism
• Christian theological engagements with Islam
• constructive theology and ethics from a Christian or Muslim perspective
• Arab Christianity, classic and contemporary
• political Islam
• political theology
• comparative theology

Research supervisor

You can find out more and identify a potential supervisor by looking at the School’s staff profiles, which give details of research interests and publications, and email addresses.

• School of Divinity staff profiles

You are encouraged to contact a potential supervisor to discuss your research project before making a formal application.

Research community

At the School of Divinity you will join a community of around 150 research students, drawn from around the world, and from a variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds.

Research reputation

You will study in a stimulating environment. The Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 ranked the School first in Scotland and fifth in the UK for its research power in theology and religious studies. The majority of the research activity of our colleagues is classed as world-leading, reflecting the vibrancy of the School’s research culture.

Training and support

The ethos of the Graduate School is to promote excellence in postgraduate study, within a stimulating and supportive environment. We value equality and diversity in the School community, and an academic culture that is both critical and constructive.

• At the start of the academic year, you will be invited to Welcome Week, an intensive introduction to study and life in Edinburgh. Some events are especially for international students new to Scotland and the UK, but everything is open to all.
• In the first weeks, the School provides a general orientation to research skills and to wider opportunities for training and support.
• From your first days as a PhD or MPhil student, you will work one-to-one with your primary research supervisor.
• Your progress will be tracked, through regular supervisions and milestone reviews, to ensure that you get the support you need to bring your project to fruition.
• You will be part of the research seminars in Theology and Ethics, and in Religious Studies, to which visiting speakers are invited and to which postgraduates present work-in-progress.
• You will be able to follow taught courses that contribute to your interests and research needs, and can also take advantage of opportunities to learn ancient and modern languages.
• If you are a PhD student, after successful completion of your first year, you will be eligible to apply for tutoring opportunities, to gain teaching experience.

A University review (2015) commended the Graduate School for providing excellent support, such as being:

• responsive to student feedback
• proactive in helping new postgraduates to adjust to their studies and to life in Scotland
• enthusiastic and practical in promoting career development

The postgraduate student committee works closely with the School to make the research student experience the best it can be.

The School of Divinity, one of the largest centres for the study of religion in the United Kingdom, is located in the historic setting of New College, close to Edinburgh Castle and overlooking Princes Street.

Resources for research are excellent. You can draw on the outstanding holdings of:

• New College Library
• University of Edinburgh Main Library
• National Library of Scotland

New College Library has one of the largest theology collections in the UK, with more than a quarter of a million items and a large and rich manuscript collection.

The University library exceeds 2.25 million volumes.

The National Library of Scotland – a ‘legal deposit’ library like the British Library in London and the university libraries of Oxford and Cambridge – is just around the corner.

Research seminars and events

The School provides an extensive programme of weekly research seminars and special guest lectures.

In addition, three research centres provide a special focus for activity:

• Centre for the Study of Christian Origins
• Centre for Theology and Public Issues

Centre for the Study of World Christianity

Find out more about our research

Study facilities

You will have access to excellent study facilities, dedicated to postgraduates. PhD and MPhil students have access 24/7, and can request an allocated desk. Masters by Research students have shared study space. All areas have printing/scanning and computer facilities.

The main postgraduate study wing has a kitchen. New College has an on-site cafe that is open during term time.

Choose your research programme

You can choose from two research programmes: the MPhil or the PhD.

Each takes a different amount of time: the MPhil takes two years; a PhD takes at least three.

Master of Philosophy (MPhil)

Studying for an MPhil commits you to:

• at least two years of full-time study
• write a thesis of up to 50,000 words

You will have regular one-to-one supervision and work with advice from two supervisors.

During the first year, you explore your chosen area of research and refine your research proposal. At around the nine-month mark, you will submit a draft chapter for discussion at a Review Board, together with a developed proposal for the whole thesis. On the basis of your progress and the prospects for your research, the Review Board will make recommendations on the continuation of your studies into the second year.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Research for a PhD will require you to undertake:

• at least three years’ full-time study
• a thesis of up to 100,000 words

For admission to the PhD programme, you will need to show a proven ability to sustain independent research under supervision, normally in the form of a masters programme that includes a dissertation.

From the beginning, the British pattern of PhD studies focusses on working towards the thesis: there is little or no coursework. This means that from the start you need to be well-prepared in any special skills you need for your research project, including languages. You will also need to be competent in academic writing in English.

During the first year, you explore your chosen area of research and refine your research proposal. At around the nine-month mark, you will submit a draft chapter for discussion at a Review Board, together with a developed proposal for the whole thesis.

On the basis of your progress and the prospects for your research, the Review Board will make recommendations on the continuation of your studies into the second year. After that, you will have an annual review to discuss your progress.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

Masters by Research and MPhil: A UK 2:1 honours degree with a mark of at least 65%, or its international equivalent, in a relevant subject. You should also have academic training in the area of your research project.

PhD: A UK 2:1 honours degree, a minimum US 3.25 GPA, or its international equivalent, and a masters degree in a relevant area. The masters degree should demonstrate a high level of attainment, normally with both coursework and a research dissertation marked at 67% or above (or its international equivalent, e.g. US 3.7 GPA). You should also have academic training in the area of your proposed research project.'

We may also consider your application if you have other qualifications or experience; please contact us to check before you apply.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.0 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 20 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 169 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 59 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

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This is a pure research programme and there are no course modules for this programme. Candidates are required to attend and pass Research Methodology course within the first two semesters of candidature and all the graduation requirements before being conferred the Degree. The medium of thesis is in Malay or English, but under special circumstances, the Senate may approve the use of a language other than Bahasa Malaysia or English for the thesis concerned.  More

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UM Student's Repository is an open access digital archive and an initiative of the University of Malaya Library. UM Student's Repository contains theses produced by UM's undergraduate and postgraduate students.

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Browse a list of UM theses categorized by faculty. This list is available at Library Website.

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PhD thesis (full)

The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Islamic revival in the world yet remains significantly under-researched. This thesis examines the British branch of the movement based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 18 months. Intensive participant observation was combined with 59 semi-structured interviews to present a detailed typology and topography of the movement's organisational structure in Britain. Further, the issue of intergenerational transmission is explored – based on an analysis of the cultural identity markers of language, clothing and food – with clear shifts identified between the first-generation 'Old Guard' and the British-born 'Avant-Garde.' The thesis argues that TJ should best be characterised as a movement in transition located within broader processes of indigenisation operative within British Islam more generally. Theoretically, the thesis augments Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge with insights derived from Bhaskar’s critical realism to propose the twin 'generative mechanisms' of secularity and spirituality from which empirically accessible social phenomena emerge. These are used to anatomise the process of 'intra-religious conversion' which emerges as a key motif of contemporary TJ experience. Turner's concept of liminality and Schutz's phenomenology of consciousness are further deployed to examine ritual and semantic dimensions of conversion that see the neophyte’s attachment to religion transition from a nominal to a passionate state. Generic theories in the sociology of religion are also consulted to explore issues of retention and post-conversion strategies of commitment-maintenance. Finally, utilising insights from Peter Berger’s vast oeuvre, the thesis explores the intersection of 'Islamic Revival' with secularisation theory in Europe. It argues that, in the context of contemporary ‘Eurosecularity,’ the willed and conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith is intrinsically imbued with a disconcerting ‘debunking’ potential for those who have unthinkingly imbibed into interior consciousness the taken-for-granted suppositions of a secular nomos.

Related Papers

Contesting Religious Identities: Transformations, Disseminations and Mediations

Nilüfer Göle

“Contesting Islam: The Making and Unmaking of Religious Faith”, in Contesting Religious Identities: Transformations, Disseminations and Mediations, Bob Becking, Anne-Marie Korte, & Lucien van Liere (dir.), Brill, Leiden; Boston, 2017, pp. 203-208

Ruhi Can Alkın

Archives Des Sciences Sociales Des Religions

Grace Davie

Dr Riyaz Timol

Though Europe’s drive towards increasing secularity has often been judged as an inexorable reality, the influx of immigrant communities – Christian and otherwise – has transformed its religious landscape. New configurations of religion proliferate as the form and content of religious experience evolves with changing circumstances. Islam took root in Britain primarily due to the economic migrations arising from post-war labour shortages but it has nevertheless succeeded in establishing a robust infrastructure for itself which now boasts nearly 2000 mosques. Movements for Islamic revival, usually developed abroad in the context of colonial rule, were transplanted into the diaspora by early migrants seeking ways to negotiate their commitment to faith in a vastly different socio-cultural milieu. Yet these movements have today been appropriated by their offspring – second and third generation British-born Muslims – who seek to reconcile the tensions of a secular sociality, a counter-cultural religious praxis and an inherited ethnic culture. This paper draws upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with the British branch of the Tablighi Jama’at (TJ), the world’s largest Muslim lay missionary movement, as part of the author’s doctoral thesis. It examines, through a complex prism of identity, diaspora and transnationalism, how the lived experiences of committed British-born TJ activists illuminate current debates about secularisation theory and also suggests ways in which Muslim experiences may ally more closely with the emergence of newer post-secular paradigms.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

Jason Alvis

Stephen H Jones

Set against the backdrop of ongoing intergenerational changes within the Islamic tradition in Britain, this chapter profiles a range of emerging initiatives whose aim is to produce and disseminate knowledge of the Islamic faith. It explores the reasons for the emergence of these new initiatives, the type of knowledge that they produce and the means by which that knowledge is transmitted. In doing this, the chapter challenges conventional sociological analyses of Islam in the West that have tended to focus upon the individualization of religious belief, and that have contended that emergent forms of Islam tend to be rooted in emotional identification rather than learning. Drawing on interviews and other fieldwork with activists and religious scholars, it is argued that these analyses ultimately offer only limited help in resolving debates about Islam’s place in Europe.

Carole Irwin

The recent phenomenon of Christian interest litigations instantiates a wider difficulty. This difficulty involves the theological political problems of secularity and religious identity, as these find expression in the everyday aporiae of practiced Christian religious conviction. The core argument of the thesis is that these problems need to be understood and dealt with as difficult. It asks what resources can help articulate these problems, and their difficulty, as a feature of late-modern Western democracies, but without sliding into forms of culture war. Oliver O’Donovan and John Milbank are two key figures for political theology, but their work tends to set Christianity in an oppositional relationship to secular late modernity. The thesis argues that some contrasting but key decisions in their theology mean that they do not deal with the aporiae of that relationship. Rowan Williams is the key conversation partner in the thesis. He uses the notion of ‘difficulty’ frequently but e...

Mika Lassander

In this chapter I will set out the ideas and concepts upon which I base my view that actor-network theory can be a fruitful approach for studying beliefs and worldviews in those Western societies which are experiencing relatively rapid changes in their religious landscapes. Against the backdrop of these changes are wide-ranging transformations in people’s priorities – such as an increasing openness to change and a loosening of traditional norms of conformity – but also more particular signs of the long-term processes whereby the ideal of individual freedom has started to outweigh the sense of collective duty. Eventually these processes have led to a situation where individualisation is the expected norm and the ties between colleagues and peers outweigh the binding ties that have held traditional collectives together. Liquid modernity is a term Zygmunt Bauman uses to describe the state of the contemporary world. He contrasts liquid modernity with the kind of modernity – or the idea of moder-nity – where institutions and social forms and structures have had time to take on solid and relatively predictable forms in people’s minds; serving as frames of reference for their actions and for the lives they envision. However, through processes of globalisation and technological and social developments, individuals’ life settings have become increasingly complex and varied, tasking people to find ways to navigate this complexity by themselves, to adapt to continuously changing opportunities, limitations and social contexts, and often to plan their lives in episodes rather than as a foreseeable and progressive sequence. The institutions have become fluid, porous structures, and people’s lives more complex.

Jason Cabitac

[S.l. : s.n.]

Maria Vliek

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2023 alwaleed bin talal dissertation prize in islamic studies announcement.

The Selection Committee would also like to recognize Dr. Marijana Mišević (History and Middle Eastern Studies) as honorable mention for her dissertation, “ Writing Slavic in the Arabic Script: Literacy and Multilingualism in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire .” Marijana uses South-Slavic languages written in the Arabic script in the Ottoman Balkans from the 15 th to 17 th centuries as a window into a multicultural environment. Marijana uncovers important new material and reconceptualizes Slavic aljamiado as Slavophone Arabographia , which she uses as a case for the investigation of the relationship between language and power in the early Ottoman empire, challenging the prevailing contemporary and ahistorical conceptions of language, culture, and script.

Congratulations Nariman and Marijana!

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