History of the Rightly Guided Caliphs

About the course

This course is meant to introduce students of knowledge to the science of history and its different branches. Students will get acquainted with Islamic intellectual and political history during the time of the Khulifāʾ Rāshidūn and how it is connected to future Islamic polities. Moreover, this course is also meant to give students a basic understanding of Islamic historiography (minhāj al-tārīkh \ falsafat al-tārīkh) and indigenous epistemologies, in order to equip them with the tools to refute Orientalist histories. The course is designed to provide students with evidence-based knowledge, with a focus on proofs from the Quran, Sunnah, and authentic sources of history to enable them to distinguish between the acceptable and fabricated narrations about their history. (2 credit hours)

About the Instructor(s)

Jaan Islam

Dr Jaan Islam is both an instructor and former graduate of Mishkah University, and specializes in teaching Seerah and early Islamic history. His PhD in Islamic studies, which he earned at the University of Edinburgh, examines the premodern origins of divine sovereignty in classical Islamic jurisprudence, legal theory, exegesis and theology. Dr Islam i a researcher in Islamic studies at the University of Oxford.

Dr Jaan has published several books and articles in the field of Islamic political thought, including a recent book on Ibn Taymiyyah entitled Islam and the State in Ibn Taymiyya: Translation and Analysis (Routledge 2022). He also specializes in some traditional Islamic sciences, including history, legal theory (usul al-fiqh), and political jurisprudence.