Courses Available to Audit
The Qur’an: Composition, Collection and Teachings
This course introduces students to the collection, compilation and standardization of the Qur’an along with its main features, structure, and themes. We will examine the different interpretive processes and approaches employed by exegetes, from the classical to the modern period, to yield meaning that is relevant to confront theological, legal and social issues. The course will also address the role of the Qur’an in everyday life and thought of a Muslim
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Islamic Ethics
This course surveys the literature in Islamic ethical thought, identifying key themes and topics for Muslims committed to living Islam as a way of life. Students explore how diverse Muslims have chosen to navigate the challenges of global modernity. They also examine how Islamic principles can help Muslims live with integrity in contemporary American society.
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Universal Maxims in Islamic Law and Beyond
The Maxims of Jurisprudence (al-qawāʾid al-fiqhiyyah) constitute a field in Islamic Law that enable a more supple approach to legal reasoning than “rote” or fixed methods. By means of these guiding “universals,” a nimble jurist is better empowered to join novel and emerging cases with judgments more in keeping with the ethical aims of sacred law. These universal maxims to provide an inherently Islamic style of reasoning that informs solutions and “ways forward” in socio-cultural situations—well beyond the field of jurisprudence—amid ordinary life decisions. This course will utilize case studies of contemporary issues that can be approached from the perspective of the maxims, accounting for the North American/Western contexts of Muslim life.
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Islam and Human Rights
This course critically explores theoretical and conceptual issues relating to the nature of human rights and the Islamic legal-theological-ethical tradition. The course identifies points of tension and convergence between the two systems. The course also examines various responses by Muslim thinkers, traditional and progressive, to contemporary discourses on human rights and substantive human rights issues, such as freedom of religion and conscience, women’s rights, treatment of minorities, and Islamic criminal law. The course also evaluates the effectiveness of human rights organizations/activists with regard to the geopolitical context.
Grief Care: Balancing Faith, Theology & Practice
Chaplaincy and spiritual care plays a primary role in helping communities navigate various life challenges, perhaps none more evident that grief and bereavement. While the sources of Islamic knowledge, namely the Quran and Hadith literature emphasize the role of trials and tribulations as an important means of development and spiritual growth of the human being, practitioners have to provide the necessary support to those encountering loss. This course seeks to provide students with a practical output in terms of how to navigate religious text in their pastoral care efforts in servicing their respective communities in times of grief.
Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice in Muslim Communities
This course explores Muslim perspectives in the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. We will systematically cover key concepts and major approaches in the field, such as interpersonal and intergroup and intragroup conflict resolution, third-party mediation, restorative justice, way of the council, and transformative and healing justice. Furthermore, this course examines the classical Muslim understandings of peacebuilding (salm), reconciliation (sulh), and arbitration (tahkīm), as well as contemporary Muslim contributions to the aforementioned approaches in the field. A recurring theme throughout this course is that for a Muslim community to function effectively there must be a viable system of conflict resolution that maintains peace between its members and other groups.
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Fundraising Strategies for Faith-Based Organizations
Religious organizations, often operating as non-profits, must find ways to raise funds for programs and operations. However, leaders in such organizations may not possess the requisite understanding of the strategies and tools available to effectively engage and secure support from various philanthropic sources. It is important for leaders to gain awareness of the current giving landscape, and of new approaches to fundraising involving digital platforms, social media, and marketing. This course equips learners with a sense of philanthropic trends, new fundraising approaches, and provides an opportunity to develop grant proposals, budgets, and fundraising action plans.
Foundations of Islamic Education
This course provides an introduction to Islamic educational thought, concepts and practices as developed within classical Islamic civilization. Through evaluation of translated primary sources and reflection on contemporary best practices, educators integrate knowledge and skills to facilitate religious education in Muslim school contexts.
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Islamic Rational Theology: 'Ilm al-Kalam
This course provides an introduction to the most important topics, figures, and methods of formative and classical Islamic theology (kalām), (8th-12th CE). In the 9th/3rd (CE/AH), ‘ilm al-kalām emerged as a systematic rational program used to affirm Islamic creedal doctrine and to develop analytical modes of examination and dialectal argumentation. This program—deployed primarily as a means of theological education and debate—would endure as the de rigeur method of Sunni theology until the turn of the 20th century. During this course, students will explore the early historical developments of the field, identify the primary objectives and priorities of kalām theology, and engage with the various frameworks and tools of that emerge within kalam relative to the Islamic intellectual tradition.
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Paradigms of Islamic Spirituality
Description pending.
To enroll in Arabic, use the registration form at this link instead: bayanonline.org/arabic
Intermediate Arabic 2A
Students further develop their reading, speaking, listening, and writing skills, and vocabulary. They master more complex grammar and syntax involving words derived from Arabic root patterns, using them to produce extended sentences and passages. They also master conjunctions and additional verb tenses.
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