Middle Eastern Wars: Jihad & Resistance

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

170 hours

Admission to the Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced) or fourth-year honours in history (or in a relevant program), or enrolment in a relevant coursework Masters program.

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

The basic meaning of the word Jihad is 'effort', one to achieve a positive goal. The effort can be personal and spiritual, to achieve piety and moral integrity, or collective and physical participation in warfare to protect or advance a moral and Islamic society. This subject studies the second of those manifestations, but with a vital awareness of the importance of the first. It explores the religious political and social context of warfare in the Middle East and North Africa between the local population and various European and 'western' enemies, and in particular the ways in which wars were conducted. Using primary sources, it will examine concepts of honour and sacrifice, warfare and the notion of 'just' war. It will begin with a background in the early Islamic period, but concentrating on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to examine concepts of pre-colonial resistance, wars of liberation and the clash of civilisations that is proposed to explain present-day conflict. Students will be asked to place the primary sources in a contemporary theoretical perspective and so develop an understanding of the ways in which warfare between Muslims and Europeans has changed during the colonial and postcolonial periods.

Students who complete this subject should be able to:

• understand the relationships between religious and political motivation in military conflict;
• identify the influences of culture, political organisation and geographic and economic circumstances on the form of conflict; and
• understand the relationship between theory based in a received conception of the past and practice.

• A 2000 word class paper due during the semester (40%)
• A 3000 word research essay due during the examination period (60%)

Hurdle requirement: Students are required to attend a minimum of 80% of classes in order to pass this subject.

A subject reader will be available.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.