New types of information technology such as the Internet and CD-ROM can be used to enhance courses in colleges and universities. A large amount of primary material about Islam and Islamic civilizations, for example, is available to students through the Internet, including full texts of the Qur�an in various translations, several collections of Hadith (records of the Prophet Muhammad�s words and deeds), Shi`i and Sufi religious texts, and classics works of Islamic literature. Since this material is mostly translated, it is of limited interest to advanced graduate students, but it is appropriate for undergraduate courses on Islamic religion, history, and civilization as well as for survey courses in world history. Using material from the Internet provides students with access to primary sources and research material that is often unavailable at smaller institutions. It can also expose students to different points of view within the Muslim community. The challenge for already overextended professors is figuring out how to locate these materials and incorporate them into courses. After reviewing primary source material for teaching Islamic Civilization that is available on-line, I'll discuss methods and issues related to incorporating Internet material into courses.

Primary Materials for Teaching Islamic Civilization

The Qur'an on-line
Hadith and Fiqh on-line
Material about Shi`ism
Material about Sufism
Islamic Literature
Islamic Art and Architecture
Miscellaneous Tools

Incorporating Internet Material into Courses

Course Web Pages
CD-ROM
Internet Assignments

The Qur'an on-line

Students can access several translations, or interpretations, of the Qur�an through the Internet. Reading Qur�an on the Internet, rather than (or in addition to) buying a copy, enables students to read and compare different interpretations, use search functions to locate quickly passages on topics of interest, view the Arabic text, read it in transliteration, and/or hear Qur'an recitation. Not surprisingly, most of the material related to the Qur'an and other religious material was put on the Internet by Muslim groups, especially Muslim Student Associations at various universities. As a result, most of these sites contain pamphlets on a wide variety of topics related to the Qur'an and Islam in general in addition to primary source material.

Since the links in these sites don't always work, it is helpful to list alternative sites where students can find the assigned interpretation. The Yusuf Ali version with a subject list is available at yet another site, http://www.umr.edu/~msaumr/Quran/, maintained by the M.S.A. at the University of Missouri-Rolla. Other copies of Shakir�s interpretation are located at http://etext.virginia.edu/koran.html, http://info.uah.edu/msa/quranShakir.html and http://www.hti.umich.edu/relig/koran/. The latter site allows students to use several different methods to search the text for passages of interest. The T.B. Irving version is available at http://www.safaar.com/quran.html. A different interpretation by Muhammad Taqi ud-Din al-Hilani and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan with a glossary and introductions to each surah is available from the U.N.N. Islamic Society in the United Kingdom at http://www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/quran/neindex.htm.

Students who want to read what the Qur�an has to say about women�s issues without spending hours leafing through an index can go to a home page that contains a collection of ayahs (verses) related to women. To access this site, visit the Muslim Sister�s home page at https://www.albany.edu/~ha4934/sisters.html, scroll down the first section, and click on the article entitled "177 Ayahs about Women in the Qur�an." Students should be cautioned that only verses containing the word "women" are listed; the Qur'an includes information about divorce laws, for example, that does not appear in this collection. Information about a specific issue is best located by performing a search.

Hadith and Fiqh on-line

A large amount of material from various Hadith collections, records of the Prophet Muhammad�s words and deeds, is available through the Internet. The M.S.A. at U.S.C. has put reputable, full text translations of Hadith collections by al-Bukhari and Malik�s al-Muwatta on-line through the following address: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah. This site also contains partial translations of Hadith collections by two other Hadith scholars, Muslim and Abu-Dawud. Since these collections are arranged by topic--revelation, ablutions, Friday prayer, witnesses, manumission of slaves, etc.--students can easily locate sections of interest; there is also a search function.

Material about Shi`ism

Material about Sufism

Islamic Literature

Since there are many older translations of classic works of Islamic literature, where copyright is not an issue, one can also access translations of Islamic literature that might be of use for courses on Islamic civilization. One of the best ways to find translations is through a web page maintained by Columbia University's library at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/MiddleEast/literatures.html, which includes links to a large amount of classic and contemporary literature and poetry, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Kurdish literature. There are several sites that contain translations of individual classes, such as 1001 Nights. A hypertext version of Sir Richard Burton�s translation is available at http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/techfak/ags/ti/personen/mfreeric/m/an/a_index.html and a hypertext version of Andrew Lang�s turn of the century translation is available at the same site, http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/techfak/ags/ti/personen/mfreeric/m/an/ lang/lang.index. Project Gutenberg, which puts full-text versions of works without copyright on-line, has links to translations of 1001 Nights at http://tom.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/book/lookup?num=128. Sir Richard Burton's translation of Arabian Nights is also on-line at gopher://gopher.vt.edu:10010/02/56/1. Since this translation is not in hypertext, however, one has to download the whole file, which takes a long time; it is also difficult to direct students to a story in the middle of the text.

Scholars seem to have been most active in putting classics of Persian literature and poetry on-line, both in Persian and in translation. A site entitled "Treasures of Persian Literature," at a university in Japan, http://www.cit.ics.saitama-u.ac.jp/hobbies/iran includes links to full text originals and classic translations of an impressive number of Persian classics, including Ferdowsi's Shahname, The Gulistan of Saadi, Ghazels by Hafiz, and the Rubiat of Omar Khayyam. The main page of this site, at http://www.cit.ics.saitama-u.ac.jp/hobbies/iran/farsi.html, also contains other useful material, such as a collection of Persian miniatures and links to pictures of modern cities in Iran. Some of these Persian classics, along with examples of modern Persian poetry, can be accessed through another site, the Persian Literature Page, at http://www.iranonline.com/literature/index.html. A full text translation of the Shahnameh by Firdausi is available at gopher://gopher.vt.edu:10010/02/83/1 and the Gulistan of Sa`di can be reached at gopher://gopher.vt.edu:/10010/02/140/1. Again, since these gopher texts are not in hypertext format, they are of limited use for courses.

Islamic Art and Architecture

In addition to the written texts listed above, there is information and graphic material about Islamic arts and architecture that can be accessed over the web. A site entitled "Islamic Arts and Architecture" at http://www.islamicart.com/ includes information and pictures about coins, calligraphy, carpets, and architecture. There are also sites with pictures and information about various Islamic cities. A site on Isfahan at http://www.anglia.ac.uk/~trochford/isfahan.html provides a "virtual tour" through Isfahan, with photographs and descriptions of its incredible art and architecture, including mosques and shrines. The "On-line Guide to al-Haram ash-Sharif" at http://www.al-aqsa.com/index.html contains pictures and information about al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, drawn from a CD ROM sold through this site.

Miscellaneous Tools

In addition to the primary source material listed above, a variety of tools that may be useful for courses on Islam can be accessed through the Internet. If you want your students to compare the Hijri and Gregorian calenders, for example, look at a site at http://www.assirat.org/Hcal/hdate_gr.cgi, where you can type in any day-month-year and find the equivalent date in the Hijri or Gregorian calender. Biographies of Muhammad�s companions are available through the U.S.C. page at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/history/ and the Alim page at http://www.qibla.msa. upenn.edu/alim_online/alimhome.html. Although these biographies contain useful, detailed information drawn from Muslim sources, they should still be used with caution. The biography of `Aishah, for example, states that she was married at the age of fourteen or fifteen, several years older than conventional historiography.

Another site at Princeton University, al-Khazina, "the Treasury," at http://www.princeton.edu/~humcomp/alkhaz.html, contains links to other useful information. There is a link to a page about the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, with pictures and detailed information about Hajj rituals. This site also contains links to a chronology of Islamic history and dynasties, as well as a collection of historical maps reprinted from published historical atlases such as Roolvink's and Brice's atlases of the Middle East. Detailed chronologies of Islamic history from the 6th to the 20th centuries can also be found at the U.S.C. and Alim pages listed in the previous paragraph. Other sites with maps of the Middle East include a collection of historical maps through the University of Pennsylvania at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/map.html. This site includes links to about fifteen clear, color maps, including maps of Muslim expansion to 661 A.D., the Umayyad Dynasty ca. 750, the Abbasid Empire in 900, the Muslim world in 1300 and 1500, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, etc. The Perry Castanda map collection at the University of Texas has a collection of maps of the Middle East at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/middle_ east.html. Most of these maps are contemporary; the section entitled "Historical maps" mostly includes maps from the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent from the early 20th century.

CORY BLAKE is an Assistant Professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, where she teaches courses on Islam and the Middle East as well as world history. She received her PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University in 1991; her dissertation topic was "Training Arab-Ottoman bureaucrats: Syrian Graduates of the Mulkiye Mektebi, 1890-1920. She became interested in using the Internet while teaching at Rowan, and presented a paper entitled "Sources for Middle Eastern Historians on the Internet" at the Middle Eastern Studies Association Conference in 1995. Last fall she organized a panel on "Teaching with Technology: Middle East History and Politics" at the M.E.S.A. conference in San Francisco, and presented an earlier version of "Teaching Islamic Civilization with Technology" at the conference. Currently, she is working on incorporating more Internet material into her courses on the Modern Middle East and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

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Teaching Islamic Civilization with Information Technology
Copyright © 1998 by the Journal for MultiMedia History
All images come from linked WWW pages.

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