The content of the course about "History and politics of the Islamic world" is aimed at introducing the student to the main analytical tools of a state model that was born during the 7th century and survived until the contemporary age, throughout many modifications and a several centuries transformation. The program contemplates the roots of the primitive Arab state, its conquests, expansion and evolution, as well as its cultural influence both on the spaces dominated by the Arabs and on other political institutions of their environment, highlighting in particular the dialogue with Europe throughout the Middle Ages.
SECTION 1. THE BIRTH OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD: UNITY, EXPANSION AND CULTURE
1. Introduction. The Islamic world: the religious and political facets. The sources of knowledge about the Islamic world. The foundations: the geopolitical context of Arabia and its environment between the 6th and 7th centuries.
2. Muhammad: his life and projects. Religious principles. Between Mecca, the Hegira and the "Medina constitution". The first religious and political organization of the Arabs.
3. Religious and legal principles of Islam: the five pillars of the Muslim believer and the sharia in its first organization. The legal schools and their influence on the transformation of the obligations of the Muslim believer.
SECTION 2. GEOPOLITICAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD
4. The succession of Muhammad: Sunnis and Shiites. The Umayyad Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate.
5. Byzantium, the Persian Empire, the Visigoths and their confrontations with Islam.
6. A model of the Arab state in Europe: Al Ándalus and "the great century of Abderramán III".
7. The Spain of the Cid between Christianity and Islam.
8. The internal and external fragmentation of the Arab peoples and its consequences.
9. The Mongols and the Ottomans and their affiliation to Islam.
SECTION 3. POLITICAL (RE)PRESENTATION OF ISLAM
10. Culture and political-institutional tradition in the Islamic world.
11. The political thought of Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarjan ibn Uzalag al-Farabi.
12. Arab historiography on the crusades.
13. Modernization and Arab nationalism.
14. Islamic radicalism and the phenomenon of jihadist violence
15. The Islamic world in international politics.