HISTORY OF THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST FROM MUHAMMAD TO CONTEMPORARY AGE

The teaching module offers a general overview of the history of the Near and Middle East and of its key concepts. The lessons and bibliography will go through the major historical events of the area, devoting particular attention to its geographically central regions and to the social and political evolution of these countries.

The course in "History of Near and Middle East" is part of the training activities of the Degree Course in "Languages, cultures and Societies of Asia and North Africa" (LICSAAM).
The teaching contributes to the achievement of the educational objectives of the CdS in the area of cultural and humanistic skills.

The aim of the course is to provide students with a general survey of the main cultural and religious dynamics characterizing the origins and expansion of Islam, and its diversified religious and political trends and movements that have concurred in shaping the history of Islamic civilization.

- Basic knowledge of the main events and dynamics of the history of the Near and Middle East from the advent of Islam to the contemporary era.
- Ability to reflect on the categories of the history of the Near and Middle East
- Ability to analyze the social and political evolution in the Near and Middle East
- Ability to eplain notions in a clear and articulated way

No specific qualifications are required to attend the course.

In general
Geographic coordinates
• Definition and history of th following concepts
◦ Near East
◦ Middle East
◦ MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
◦ West Asia
2. Historiographical coordinates
• Historical periodization of the Islamic world
• Definition od "Islamic"
Early modern period
Il contesto tardoantico e le conquiste
• Near and Middle East during 7th c. CE
• Islām as a late antique phenomenon
• The early Islām
• The expansion and the first institutional settings
The institutional framework in the Near and Middle East
• The Caliphate during the Omayyad era
• The five centuries of the Abbasid dynasty
◦ Birth of the the legal schools
◦ The "canonization" fo the Caliphate
◦ The new role of the Caliph
◦ The militar evolution during Abbasid times
Societies in the Near and Middle East
• The Persians
• The Turks
• The non-Muslim peoples and the conversion to Islām
Modern period
Consequences of the Mongol invasion
The Mamluk Egypt
The Ottoman expansion in Egypt, Near East and Iraq
Iraq
• The Mamluk government
• The return of the Ottomans
Egypt
• The Napoleonic invasion
• Egypt under Muhammad 'Ali
Syria, Lebanon, Palestina
• The administrative geography of the Ottoman Near East
• The "millet" system
• Sectarian conflicts in Lebanon and the beginning of the European intervention
• Annessions of Egypt, Syria and Palestina
La penisola araba
• The Wahhabism
• The Ottoman-Saudi war
The twentieth century
The Arab nationalism
The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the mandates
• Sykes-Picot
• The kingdom of Iraq
• The madatarian republics of Syria and Lebanon
• Palestina during the mandatarian period, the Zionist immigration and the Balfour Declaration
Arabia
• Birth of the Saudi Arabia

Mandatory texts:
Tamara Sonn, Islam. A brief History, Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010 (2nd ed.).
Jamil M. Bun-Nasr, A historyof the Maghrib in the Islamic period. Cmbridge: Unversity Press, 1987.

Recommended texts:
Ahmed, Shahab. What Is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015.
Al-Azmeh, Aziz. The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923. New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century. 2 edition. Routledge, 2004.
Gelvin, James L. The Modern Middle East: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Bonine, Michael E. Is There a Middle East?: The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2012.
Choueiri, Youssef M. Arab Nationalism: A History Nation and State in the Arab World. Wiley, 2001.

The oral examination will require the student to succintely answer at least three open questions about the topics adressed in the course.

Conventional didactic method (frontal lessons).

Italian

oral