Beginning with the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphs, and focusing in detail on the period since 1800, this course will examine the relationship between Islam and the West.
We will study the relationship between contemporary Islam, Western democracy, post-Enlightenment thinking and concepts of civil and human rights, and seek to identify democratic and human rights trends within Islam. For example, why does the influence of political Islam appear to be stronger than that of historical Sufi thinking?
We will conclude by studying why things appear to have gone so badly wrong since The Arab Spring which started with so much hope in 2011. We look at the struggle for freedoms in Iran, the cost of President Assad's Russian-supported rule in a devastated Syria, the dilemma of the West over the Israel-Palestine impasse, the impact of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, and the significance of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Additionally we will ask if Algeria is to crash again after so much conflict and uncertainty.