Baber Johansen

Professor of Islamic Religious Studies

Harvard University
HDS 3693 Islamic Modernism 1 [1700-1800]
Tuesday 4-6 pm
Rockefeller 117
Fall 2014
TF/RA: David Owen

Islamic Modernism (1)

A- The debate on the eighteenth century in American, English, and
German literature from the 1970s to 1996.
Session 1 (Tuesday, September 9, 2014):
Discussion of the aims of the 3 courses on Islamic Modernism.
(Distribution of the texts to be discussed in Session 2)
Session 2 (September 16, 2014):
Was there an Islamic Modernism in the 18th century? John O. Voll, Nehemia Levtzion,
and Peter Gran.
Session 3 (September 23, 2014): A debate from 1990-1996: Reinhard Schulze on
Islamic Enlightenment
Session 4 (September 30, 2014): A debate from 1990-1996: Rudolph Peters
against the concept of an
Islamic Enlightenment, R.S. OFahey and Bernd Radtke on tradition-bound
mystical thought.
Session 5 (October 7, 2014): Bernd Radtke, Gottfried Hagen, Tilman Seidensticker:
intellectual history and philology as tools of criticism against the notion of historical
change. Bernd Radtkes acceptance of some basic changes in Muslim mystical
thought of the 18thy century.
B- Reading Mystical texts: searching for their understanding of new
approaches to change in history.
Session 6 (October 14, 2014) The Moroccan Sufi Ahmad Zarruq (1441-1493) on the
development of knowledge and the ranking of ages, knowledge, and scholars.
Session 7 (October 21, 2014): The Moroccan mystics Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh (d.
1719/20) and Ahmad b. al-Mubarak al-Lamati (1679-1743) on changes in history:
the relation between the living and the dead saints.

Session 8 (October 28, 2014): More on Lamatis understanding of changes in the

history of mystical world representation.
Session 9 (November 4, 2014): The Moroccan mystic Ahmad b. Idris (d. 1837): his
links to Dabbagh via his Moroccan teacher and the role of his students in Egypt,
Hejaz, Yemen, and Sudan.
Session 10 (November 11, 2014): His refusal to accept legal methods and
techniques and the authority of jurists.
Session 11 (November 18, 2014): His heirs and their change of his heritage.
Session 12 (November 25, 2014): The political importance of mystical orders in
West Africa and North Africa from the end of the 18 th to the end of the 19th
centuries.
Session 13: (December 2, 2014): General conclusions.

Bibliography
Session 2 (September 16, 2014)
Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism, Egypt, 1760-1840, Syracuse University
Press, 1998 [first published in 1979]: Preface and Introduction, pp. IX-XLI; A Note
on Critical Reception, pp. XLIII-L; Introduction to the Original Edition, pp. LI-LVII.
John O. Voll, Hadith Scholars and Tariqahs: An Ulama Group in the Eighteenth
Century Haramayn and their Impact in the Muslim World, Journal of Asian and
African Studies 15 (1980), pp. 264-273.
Nehemia Levtzion and John O. Voll, Introduction, in Nehemiah Levtzion and John
O. Voll (eds.), Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse, New
York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp. 3-20.
Session 3 (September 23, 2014)
Reinhard Schulze, Das islamische 18. Jahrhundert: Versuch einer
historiographischen Kritik,
Die Welt des Islams 30 (1990), pp. 140-149 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1571050
Idem, Was ist die islamische Aufklaerung? Die Welt des Islams 36 (1996), pp. 276325.
Idem, Introduction, in idem, A Modern History of the Islamic World [New York: New
York University Press, 2000], p. 1-13. [This book is a translation of the German text
published in 1995 by C.H. Becksche
Verlagsbuchhandlung, Muenchen].
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Session 4 (September 30, 2014)

Rudolph Peters, Reinhard Schulzes Quest for an Islamic Enlightenment, Die Welt
des Islams 30 (1990), pp. 160-162.
R.S.O Fahey and Bernd Radtke, Neo-Sufism Reconsidered, Der Islam, 20 (1993),
pp. 52-87.
Session 5 (October 7, 2014)
Bernd Radtke, Ijtihad and Neo-Sufism, Asiatische Studien, XLVIII (1994), pp. 909921.
Gottfried Hagen und Tilman Seidensticker, Reinhard Schulzes Hypothese einer
islamischen Aufklaerung. Kritik einer historiographischen Kritik, Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft (1998), pp. 83-110.
Bernd Radtke, Sufism in the 18th Century: An attempt at a Provisional Appraisal,
Die Welt des Islams, vol. 36, Issue 3 (November 1996), pp. 326-364.
Session 6 (October 14, 2014): Istrabadi, Zaineb S., The Principles of Sufism
(Qawaid al-Tasawwuf):
An annotated translation with introduction [Indiana University, 1988]. The English
title does not mention that the author of these principles is Ahmad Zarruq, a
Moroccan Sufi and jurist (1442-1493) but the text of the thesis mentions the author
from page 1 on].
We will read the Principles (qawaid) Nos 15, 20, 36, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48,
54, 63, 66-67, 69, 111, 121. The Arabic text has been printed by the Azhar. I am
using the second edition of this print:
Qawaid al-tasawwuf allafahu Abu l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad
Zarruq [Cairo: maktabat al-kulliyyat al-Azhariyya, Second edition 1396h-1976 m]
(edited by Muhammad Zuhri al-Najjar and Ali Farghali).
For the life of Zarruq see Scott Kugle, Rebel between Spirit and Law. Ahmad Zarruq,
Sainthood, and Authority in Islam [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006],
chapters 3-5 (pp. 46-129). Chapters 6 and 7 (pp. 130- 182) discuss some of the
Principles.
Session 7 (October 21, 2014): Ahmad b. Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh, Pure Gold from
the Words of Sayyidi Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh (Al-Dhahab al-Ibriz min Kalam Sayyidi
Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh). A Translation with Notes and an Outline by John O. Kane
and Bernd Radtke [Leiden Boston: Brill, 2007]. I am using the Cairo edition of 1961
for the Arabic text.
Please read: Translators Introduction, pp. XI-XCXII; An Outline of the Ibriz, pp. 1112; The Introduction (pp. 113-197) offers a good insight into the intellectual and
psychological climate of Sufi searching for and elieving in guidance. For our
discussion the chapter 4 The Council of the godly (Diwan al-Salihin) (pp. 577-610)
may well be the most important part of this text. We will discuss it in some detail.
We will look into the qualifications for interpreting central elements of the religious
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culture and the relation between saints and the Prophet as well as between the
saints and the jurists, drawing also on other chapters of the Ibriz.
Session 8 (October 28, 2014): we will continue the discussion of the Ibriz under
the same aspects as in session 7.
Session 9 (November 4, 2014) to Session 11 (November 18, 2014):
Bernd Radtke, John OKane, Knut S. Vikr and R.S. OFahey, The Exotic Ahmad Ibn
Idris. A Sufis Critique of the Madhahib& the Wahhabis [Leiden: Brill, 2000]. This
book has to be read in its entirety. Its texts clarify the position of Ahmad Ibn Idris
against the legal methodology and the jurists.
The same holds true for R.S.OFahey, Enigmatic Saint. Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi
Tradition [London: Hurst & Company, 1990] on the biography of Ahmad ibn Idris and
the role his students played in Eighteeenth-century mysticism.
Session 12 (November 25, 2014): Nehemiah Levtzion and John OVoll (eds.),
Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (op. cit.), in particular chapter 1:
Nehemia Levtzion, The Eighteenth-Century. Background to the Islamic Revolutions
in West Africa (pp. 21-38) and chapter 2: Louis Brenner,
Muslim Thought in Eighteenth-Century West Africa. The Case of Shaykh Uthman b.
Fudi (pp. 39-67).
See also chapters 5-7 in J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam [Oxford:
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971], chapter 4: Nineteenth-Century Revival
Movements (pp. 105-132) and chapter 5: The Mysticism and Theosophy of the
Orders (pp. 133-165).