I took the History of Islamic Civilization in the second semester of my sophomore year. The course was taught by Dr. Steven Isaac. The main focus of this class was to give an overview of the formation of Islam as a religion and eventually as a civilization. To teach us about Islam as a religion, Dr. Isaac went right to the source: The Qur’an. The Qur’ans used in this course were translated, with Arabic on one half of the page and English on the other half. While, according to Islam, the Qur’an must be read in Arabic in order to come to a holistic understanding of Islam, this served to provide a decent understanding of the religion to many who were unfamiliar with it. Over the course of the semester, we read almost the entirety of the Qur’an, and recorded our thoughts in a series of seven “Qur’an Journals.” These journals included what thoughts we had and any questions we may think of during our reading. We would then discuss our findings and have questions answered in class. Reading the Qur’an was very eye-opening and gave me a much better understanding of Islam as a religion. Attached is one of the Qur’an Journals I wrote over the semester.
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Open in new tab Along with reading the Qur’an and other books that helped to expand our understanding of Islamic culture, the culminating project of this class was attending an Islamic service at a local mosque and writing about our experience. This was a new experience for me, and I very much looked forwards to it over the course of the semester. I have only ever attended Christian services of various denominations, so the prospect of a visit to a Mosque was very intriguing, especially after reading the whole Qur’an and studying Islamic culture all semester. While in a typical semester, we would have visited Farmville’s local mosque, the Imam was wary of his elderly congregation and the effects COVID may have on them, so we instead watched various videos of Islamic services in different mosques. While the experience was paired down, it was still very intriguing and educational. Attached are my reflections after watching the various services.
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