Topic: Liberal IslamLecture Focus: Islam, Democracy, and Human Rights; Islam and Modernity; Gender and Sexuality Readings **1. Message Not Government in Liberal Islam (Oxford, 1998) **2. Islam and the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women in Liberal Islam **3. AbduhsEgyptian Disciples: Islam and Modern Civilization in Arabic Thought in theLiberal Age (Cambridge, 1983) **4. Lecture on Islam by Sayyid Ahmad Khan in Modernist Islam (Oxford, 2002)Essay Questions1. How and under what definitions of Islamicgovernance would you defend and critique the thesis in item 1?2. Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muhammad Abduh represent distinct trajectories of modernization in the Islamic context. Why is this statement false? Here are some basic formatting requirements that I will expect to be met for the paper: 12 point Times New Roman font 1″ margins all around Double spaced Indented paragraphs Anonymized (only SID in upper right hand header). This is very important. I will take off points if your name or any other identifying information is present. Your paper should be formatted exactly like the sample paper I have posted under the files section (see “Midterm_Paper_Sample_Format”). Turn in your paper electronically via bcourses before the start of class on Tuesday and bring a hard copy with you to the exam (staple in the upper left hand corner). Here are some basic content guidelines: Answer the question. Don’t be afraid to be creative/say what you really think. Everyone could be wrong. The question itself could be fundamentally flawed. It might be impossible to acquire historical knowledge. Etc. Just explain in as clear and precise terms as you can why that is. Elaborate your view as fully as possible, and consider possible objections. Stay on topic (unless you have made it clear how it relates to the prompt and your response to the prompt, there is no need to give a universal history or tie the question in to some much broader theme/issue.) If you have written as much as you can and you have yet to reach the word limit specified in the syllabus, do not fill in the remaining space with nonsense. A concise but on point paper will score much higher than a long but meandering one–it may even earn a perfect score! There need not be any particular number of paragraphs. A general rule of thumb on when to start a new paragraph is if you have already written at least 3 sentences and you are about to talk about something non-trivially different from what you discussed in the previous sentences. It would be good to have one paragraph as an introduction and another as a conclusion. Whatever style you choose in order to quote from relevant texts, use it consistently. Spelling and grammar count. Unless you include outside sources (i.e. ones neither assigned nor recommended for class), there is no need to include a bibliography/works cited.
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