 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0631-4160-01 | Religion and Politics in the Early Abbasid Period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
This course deals with the relations between religion and politics under the first Abbasid caliphs up till the reign of al-Mutawakkil (assassinated in 861 CE). Among the topics discussed: the mutual dependence of religious scholars and rulers; the changing attitudes of the Abbasids and their representatives towards the House of Ali and the Shi'a; Abbasid patronage of the Hanafi school of law; the influence of the Mu'tazilis, the inquisition (Mihna) instituted by al-Ma'mun and continued by his immediate successors, the treatment of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians (ahl al-dhimma).