The Journal for MultiMedia History Volume 1 Number 1 ~ Fall 1998 |
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
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.
Searchable, full text interpretations of the Qur�an by reputable scholars are available through the Internet in hyper-text format. Perhaps the easiest way to locate this material is to go to a site that includes links to several different interpretations. A Muslim group in the U.K. maintains a site at http://www.quran.org.uk/ that provides links to eight different English interpretations of the Qur'an, including widely used versions by Marmaduke Pickthall and Yusuf Ali. Another site at http://islam.org/Mosque/Quran.htm, part of the Islami City web page, includes links to interpretations by Yusuf Ali and T.B. Irving. The T.B. Irving version includes a short introduction to each surah (chapter), with information about when the surah was revealed. A web page maintained by the Muslim Students Association (M.S.A.) of New York University, Buffalo, at http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/isl/texts.html, includes links to interpretations by Muhammad Shakir, Marmaduke Pickthall, and Yusuf Ali. The Pickthall and Yusuf Ali translations can also be accessed through the Alim homepage maintained by the M.S.A. at the University of Pennsylvania. This homepage, at http://qibla.msa.upenn.edu/alim_online/alimhome.htm, also includes a subject list linked to the Yusuf Ali edition.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.
The M.S.A. at U.S.C. maintains a helpful site that enables students to compare different interpretations of the Qur�an on a line by line basis. To access this site, go to the address http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran, scroll down to "Chapters of the Qur'an," and chose a surah. Translations of each line of the surah by three different scholars, Shakir, Pickthall, and Ali, appear listed together line by line. The site includes a comprehensive index as well as a search function. The M.S.A. at the University of Southern California provides another useful source at the same address; they have put excerpts from Syed Abu-Ala� Maududi�s noted commentary, The Meaning of the Qur�an, on-line. Though severely abridged, the on-line version includes useful introductions to each surah, with information about the surah's name, a discussion of historical events related to the text, and exegesis of the surah's themes. Maududi�s commentary can also be accessed through the Islamic Society�s site in the U.K. at: http://www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/quran/intro/iindex.htm and through the M.S.A. site in Buffalo at http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/isl/texts.htmlStudents 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.
Sometimes it is helpful to have students read the Bible for comparative purposes. Since there are a number of sites on the Internet with full text versions of the Bible as well as search functions, students can easily locate assigned passages. Students could be asked to read the story of Noah in the Qur'an and the Bible, for example, or compare the story of Joseph in these texts. Or each student could chose a topic and search the Qur'an and the Bible to compare their viewpoints. Perhaps the easist way to locate these translations is through the Bible Gateway at http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?. This site, sponsored by Gospel Communication Networks, includes links to six translations of the Bible with a variety of search options. A site at Princeton University, http://www.music.princeton.edu/chant_html/bibles.html, contains a number of links to Bible translations. The King James Version and the Revised Standard Version can also be accessed through a site at the University of Virginia, at http://etext.virginia.edu/relig.browse.html. Full text versions of the King James edition of the Bible with search capabilities are available at http://www.hti.umich.edu/relig/kjv and at http://estragon.uchicago.edu/ Bibles/. The Revised Standard edition of the Bible with search capabilities is also available on-line at http://www.hti.umich.edu/relig/rsv. Students could also be asked to read specific passages in the Torah, which is available on-line at http://bible.ort.org/bible/index/inx_pent.htm, with hyper linked commentary. Students can also read (or at least see!) the Qur�an written in Arabic through the Internet. There are several sites which include full text versions of the Qur�an in Arabic. Perhaps the easiest way to access these sites is through Ibrahim Shafi�s comprehensive "Islam Page," which includes links to three sites with Qur'ans in Arabic. Go to this page at http://www.islamworld.net/ and click on the section "Qur�an." The Islam Page also includes a link to the Muslim Society site in the U.K. where each verse is written both in Arabic and in an English translation. To reach this site directly, go to http://www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/quran/naeindex.htm. The "Qur�an" section of the Islam Page includes links to sites where one can hear the Qur�an recited by various shaykhs. To hear these recitations, one needs a computer with multimedia capabilities; it is also necessary to download audio software such as Real Audio player or True Speech player. The Islami City web site has put a recitation of the entire Qur'an by renowned reciter Shaykh Khalil al-Husari on-line at http://www.islamicity.org/radio/ch100.htm; one can also download Real Audio from this site. Other recitations are available through a site in the U.K. at http://www.almanar.org/qs/allqs.html and through the Islamic Center of Blacksburg at http://www.bev.net/community/sedki/icb_huth.htm. Students can also listen Qur�an recitations on CD ROMs such as Alim and Islamic Scholar (see below for more discussion of these CD ROMs).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.
Other interesting primary source material is available through the U.S.C. site, such as translations of Hadith Qudsi, sayings revealed to God by Muhammad but narrated in the Prophet's words. The Alim homepage at the University of Pennsylvania (http://qibla.msa.upenn.edu/alim) provides another copy of Malik�s al-Muwatta and the complete collection of Hadith by al-Bukhari, both with linked subject lists, as well as Hadith Qudsi. Bukhari�s hadith is also available at http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~calmsa/sahih.html. To my knowledge, extensive collections of Sunni fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence, are not yet available on-line. In addition to Malik�s al-Muwatta mentioned above, one can access a readable translation of a book written by the 13th century Shafi`i scholar, al-Imam Nawawi, through a home page maintained by the M.S.U. at the University of Hartford (http://linux.hartford.edu/~grant/islam/mqsd/mqsd.html). This book, entitled al-Maqasid: Ma Yajibu Ma`rifatuhu min al-Din (The Objectives: What is Necessary to Know of the Religion), includes three sections: "Fundamentals of Faith and Sacred Law," "Purification," and "Prayer." It also contains text notes drawn from commentary translated from `Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveler) by Ahmed ibn Naqib al-Misri.
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.
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.
Course Web Pages I have tried to demonstrate that there is a lot of material on Islam and Islamic history available to students through the Internet. When I first began using these materials, I directed students to the various sites by typing web addresses in the syllabus. Students often had difficulty reaching the sites; they would not understand all the symbols, type the address incorrectly and in general, became very frustrated. A better approach is to develop a web page for the course, with links to the required readings, or sites. From this page, which can be a complete on-line syllabus as well, students simply click to reach the sites. Developing a web page used to be a complicated process that required knowledge of HTML. With the web authoring programs available now, such as Microsoft Word 97 or AOL Press, anyone who can use a word processor can author a web page. The time consuming part, as always, is locating materials to use and developing assignments based on those materials. Even with a course web page, however, students may encounter while using material from the web. Even with the help of a course web page, for example, it is still sometimes difficult for students to access sites; the university�s system could be overloaded, there could be problems at the site itself, or there could be a traffic jam on the Internet "superhighway." When the same material is available at several sites or through several entry points, as is often the case, you could include links to different locations in hopes that at least one of them will be working. You could also put back up copies of the material on reserve in the library for students who are having trouble accessing the sites, or who prefer to read the material in print.
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.
Teaching Islamic Civilization with Information Technology
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To contents: JMMH Volume 1 number 1 ~ Fall 1998