95737 - Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean : Histories and Relations (1) (Lm)

Learning outcomes

Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean : histories and relations (1) LM By the end of the course, the student will have achieved a critical understanding of some important aspects of the history of Muslim-Christian relations between the Middle Age and the early modern period. The student will be able to harness complex categories and concepts in a long-term perspective. He/she will have familiarized with extra-European cultural and geographical contexts and will be able to acknowledge the relevance of historical and cross-cultural approaches for current debates. The student will be able to identify and express the points of view of different cultures. He/she will know how to recognize and evaluate diversity and plurality as intrinsic elements of Muslim-Christian relations throughout history.

Course contents

The course will focus on cross-cultural and inter-religious interactions between Muslims and Christians during the late Medieval and beginning of the Early Modern period (13^th to 15^thcentury). It will look at cases of conversions, diplomatic, and commercial relations, both in situations of conflict and not. The geographical space taken into consideration will be the Mediterranean hub, specifically Muslim majoritarian societies on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. We will be interested in diversity of relations as well as diversity in relating such relations. Accordingly, the nature of the different types of sources, their prescriptive discourses and respective agenda will receive sustained attention. By historicizing the topics under consideration, the ultimate goal is to debunk the category "Islamic-Christian relations" as a useful heuristic one.

Readings/Bibliography

Required readings.

Please note that the following reading list is being defined and it may change before the beginning of classes.

Week 1 : Introduction

• Jack Tannous, The Formation of the Medieval Middle East, Princeton University Press, 2018, Introduzione, parte III, IV e Conclusioni (Appendice I e II facultative), pp. 242-531

• Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, volume 4 (1200-1350), a cura di David Thomas, Alex Mallett et al. (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2012), pp. 1-16 e 17-34.
• Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, volume 5 (1350-1500), a cura di David Thomas, Alex Mallett et al. (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013), pp. 1-16 e 17-34.

Week 2 e 3: Conversions and silences.

• Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age. A Sourcebook , a cura di Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn, and Luke Yarbrough, University of California Press, 2020, cap. 50.
• John Tolan, Il Santo dal Sultano (originale francese Le Saint chez le Sultan, 2007), Laterza 2009, capitolo 1 e 2. (Introduzione facoltativa).
• Andrew Peacock, Islamisation, 2017, pp. 1-10.
• Vanna Calasso, “Récits de conversions, zèle dévotionnel et instruction religieuse dans “Le livre des gens de Basra” du Kitab al-tabaqat d’Ibn Sa’d”, in: Conversions islamiques, sous la direction de M.Garcia Arenal, Maisonneuve&Larose, 2001.

Week 4 : Muslim-Christian Polemics or diplomatic relations?

• Ibn Taymiyya, Lettera ad un Re Crociato. Riflessioni sui fondamenti della «vera religione», traduzione italiana a cura di M. Di Branco, Biblioteca di Via Senato, 2004.

Week 5 : Material inter-communality and conclusions.

• Religion and Trade: Cross-Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000-1900, a cura di Francesca Trivellato, Leor Halevi, and Catia Antunes, Oxford Univeristy Press, 2014, leggere : Introduzione di Francesca Trivellato ed il capitolo 1 di Leor Halevi.
• Leor Halevi, "Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper", Speculum 83 (2008), pp. 917-945.
  

Optional readings:

Luke Yarbrough with Clara Almagro Vidal, Turnhout, Brepols: 2020, Minorities in Contact in the Medieval Mediterranean.

Luke YARBROUGH (2019), Friends of the emir: non-Muslim state officials in premodern Islamic thought (Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press)

Dwight F. Reynolds (a cura di), Interpreting the Self. Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition, (Berkeley Los Angeles London: University of California Press, 2001).

Alex Mallet, Popular Muslim Reactions to the Frankish Presence in the Levant, 1097-1291, Aldershot: UK, 2014.

Alex Mallet, Medieval Muslim Historians, and the Franks in the Levant, 1097-1291.

García-Arenal (Mercedes) (éd.), Conversions islamiques. Identités religieuses en Islam méditerranéen. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001.

Claire Norton (ed.), Conversion and Islam in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Lure of the Other; Routledge, 2019.

Peregrine Horden - Nichola Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Wiley, 2001, Capp. 1, 2, 10, 11, 12.

***

Non-attending students have a classical 'Islamic Studies' syllabus. Required readings for non-attending students:

Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, Londra: Routledge, quarta edizione 2012 (tutto).

Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Alle origini del Corano, Roma: Carocci, 2014.

Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthopology of Islam, Georgetown: Center for the Study of Contemporary islam, 1986, 28pp (reperibile on-line).

Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The importance of being Islamic, Princeton University Press, 2016, Introduction and chap. 2, or 3 or 4.

Teaching methods

Lectures, seminars.

Assessment methods

The exam will be conducted orally and will assess the student's command of the material studied in the course. The students will be required to locate any historical topic dealt with during the course or discussed in the relevant bibliography in time and space. Dates are important annd so are regional contexts.

The student will be assessed according to his/her ability to present and discuss the topics raised, making use of the exam bibliography and the course tools provided.

Top marks (28-30L) will be awarded to students displaying an excellent command of the topic as well as confident and effective use of the appropriate terminology.

Average marks (25-27) will be awarded to students who are able to summarise the relevant topics, but do not dispaly anatlytical skills nor a full command of the appropriate terminology.

Low marks (18-24) will be awarded to students displaying a patchy knowledge of the relevant topics and who do not command the appropriate terminology.

A student will be deemed to have failed the exam if he displays significant errors in his understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the subject, together with a poor command of the appropriate terminology.

Teaching tools

Power point presentations, discussions of texts.

Office hours

See the website of Caterina Bori