Term: Fall 2021
Semester Dates:
- August 24 to December 16, 2021
Participating Campuses: Host – The Ohio State University | Receiving – Rutgers University
Course Number & Title:
- The Ohio State University: ISLAM/HIST 3355 “The Early Islamic Conquests”
- Rutgers University: 508:391 “Historical Studies”
Times: Tuesday & Thursday, 12:45pm to 2:05pm Eastern Time
Professor: Dr. Sean W. Anthony | anthony.288@osu.edu
The Islamic conquests that swept across the Near East, North Africa, and Central Asia in the seventh and eighth centuries CE created the largest empire in terms of land area that the world had yet seen, and the conquests remain one of history’s most transformative events. But what was it like to witness, experience, and participate in the early Islamic conquests? How did the Muslim conquerors justify their newfound rule and how did their imperial ambitions shape the trajectory of early Islam and its diverse expressions?
Utilizing new historical methods for reading and interpreting the sparse contemporary and near-contemporary testimonies for this historical period, this course explores how these testimonies, both Muslim and non-Muslim, continue to challenge historians to revise the history of the Islamic conquests. In this course, a strong focus is placed on reading primary source materials in translation.
About the Instructor: Dr. Sean W. Anthony is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University and the author of Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam. He is also the author of The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Saba and the Origins of Shiism and Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in its Late Antique Context.
Students can enroll directly at their home institution for course credit. For more information about this course, including textbook information and instructions on enrolling, please contact digital.islam@umich.edu.