Islamic Studies

This multidisciplinary minor provides the intellectual training to approach Islam—and the world—in a historically and culturally informed manner. You’ll challenge stereotypes while exploring the diversity, complexity, and creativity of Islam and Muslim communities world-wide. This program also includes experiential opportunities in and around Baltimore that encourage self-awareness, critical consciousness, and sustained connections with local organizations and communities.

CLASSES YOU MIGHT TAKE

Islamic Pasts in the Contemporary World

This course will focus on the intellectual and cultural legacies of “Islamic pasts.” We’ll examine lost Islamic pasts in the contemporary world by using readings from anthropology, history, literature, and poetry. As the basis of this course, we’ll read four texts in their entirety focusing on four different geographic points of interest—Spain, India, the Balkans, and Palestine.

Never Forget: Muslims, Islamophobia, and Dissent After 9/11

In partnership with the social justice organization Justice for Muslims Collective, this community-engaged course and oral history project will explore how diverse Muslim communities navigated and contested belonging and political and cultural agency amidst state-sponsored violence and national debates on race, gender, citizenship and national security after 9/11 and during the ongoing War on Terror. Through history, ethnography, first-person narratives, film, fiction, and online resources, you’ll learn about the impact of 9/11 on American Muslim communities.

African-Americans and the Development of Islam in America

This course will explicate the history of early Islamic movements in the United States and the subsequent experiences of African-Americans who converted to Islam during the first half of the twentieth century. We’ll cover the spiritual growth of African American Muslims, their institutional presence, and their enduring impact on American culture writ large and African-American religion and culture more specifically.

Faculty Spotlight

Prof. Ryan Calder

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Program in Islamic Studies, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Faculty Interview with Ryan Calder

In this video interview, Dr. Calder discusses how he became interested in the topic of Islamic finance, the origins of Islamic ideas about banking, and about the Program in Islamic Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

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Prof. Naveeda Khan

Associate Professor and Department Chair, Department of Anthology

Faculty Interview with Naveeda Khan

In this interview, Dr. Khan discusses changing field sites from Pakistan to Bangladesh, about the importance of religious imagination in contemporary problems, and the study of Islam.

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Prof. Yitzhak Melamed

Professor, Department of Philosophy

Faculty Interview with Yitzhak Melamed

In this interview, Dr. Melamed discusses his lifelong interest in Spinoza, his new research about nineteenth-century Palestine, and the need to include Islamic and Jewish sources in the Western philosophical canon.

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PROF. HOMAYRA ZIAD

Lecturer, Program in Islamic Studies

Turning 9/11 Trauma Into Action and Advocacy

A new course from the Program in Islamic Studies provides tools to research and analyze the personal and systemic impacts of 9/11 while building advocacy and allyship.

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