Sufism Final Examination (Tuesday May 2, 12:30 p.m.)

Bring a Blue Book or be prepared to buy one from a colleague at an exorbitant rate.

The exam will consist of the following:

I. 1 or 2 selections from readings you did or did not have, that will require that you interpret them.

II. Identifications, some of which will be from the first half of the course, especially people like Rabia, Rumi, Ghazali, and some of the major figures. Then there will also be from the modern period, identifications, among which all of our major figures are possibilities, viz., Muhammad Abduh, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Shah Wali Allah, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Rashid Rida, Muhammad Ibn `Abd al-Wahab, the Deobandi movement, and the Barelwis, the Tijaniyya, the Sanusiyya, the Muridiyya of Senegal, the Salafiyya, etc. Please note that this is not exhaustive.

III. Some version of the following will be the only essay required, and it will be worth a significant percentage of the exam grade:

In the modern period there are at least two kinds of critiques of Sufism. Name them and discuss them. Which people or kinds of people exemplify these critiques? To what extent does modernity have anything to do with this? In which ways do these critiques overlap and differ, and do they ever converge directly?

I think that to get this question right you need to have read both the requisite chapters in E. Sirriyeh’s book and also the readings from M. Gilsenan, especially the second one entitled, “Everywhere and Nowhere: Forms of Islam in North Africa”. Presumably class lectures, as well, will be important.