F1016 Transnational Muslim Movements: Modernists, Traditionalists and Fundamentalists

Objectives
-To acquaint students with the rich diversity of Muslim movements throughout the world, both in the \'Islamic world\' and in the \'non-Islamic world\';
-To acquaint the students with the ideals and ideologies of these movements, their founders and their intellectuals;
-To acquaint the students with the \'intellectual\' struggle between modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists inside and outside the \'Islamic\' heartlands;
-To acquaint the students with some of the most important sources by reading abstracts and summaries of these sources in English.\r\n

Contents
Too often Muslims are considered to constitute a monolithic and uniform whole. As a rule, non-Muslim Westerners are heedless of the rich variety among Muslims worldwide. The processes of globalization and glocalization have even complicated the religious and political map of the umma, the Islamic community of believers.
This course will start with the intellectual founders of modernist and liberal Muslim movements, their ideology and their ideal. Although both traditionalist and fundamentalist Muslim movements are a reply to these movements of modernism they are not of necessity against modernity. Many Islamic fundamentalists studied at Western universities where they discovered the \'true\' Islam that they started to preach and propagate upon returning home.
Special attention will be paid to so-called transnational Muslim movements operating in the \'West\'. Are there any differences between these kinds of movements and Muslim movements only operating within an Islamic environment? If so, what are the differences and by what reason or reasons are they prompted? The relationship of these movements towards the West will also be dealt with.
During the course documents and sources written by founders and intellectuals of the various movements will play an important role. These documents and sources will be read together.