Introduction to Islamic Civilization · Middle Eastern, South Asian, And African Studies
Section work, that is determined by the TAs Readings every week: Moderate for an Ivy League Midterm and Finals: Very fair, she tells you the format, the terms that might be on it, and the readings.
3 short papers (4 pages- analyzing a text the professor provides) 1 midterm 1 final
Midterm: 40%, Final: 40%, Discussion: 20%. A curve is applied to your final grade. Expect 70-100 pages of reading a week; write tiny summaries of each reading to help yourself. Your TA is responsible for designing your homework, so you may have one that requires essays or summaries of reading, but all of the homework is just designed to determine if you actually read anything.
Weekly reflections on the reading. Possibly graded, probably not. We never received feedback or a grade.
Noha Radwan is a strong, knowledgeable and amazing professor. Many students will complain about her accent, or her no B.S. approach, but this is for those who cannot take the education that an Ivy League has to offer. The course is a not a light one, but this is not because of the professor, it is because The History of the Islamic Civilization is not something small, so the long unfamiliar names and dates and places all over the world will seem overwhelming, but Professor Radwan always does her best to go through it all and answer questions. The class and the sections are more intimidating than the Midterms and the Finals. There will be a lot of students groaning and complaining about the bombardment of information, however, they fail to comprehend the vast, rich and extensive history that is in this course. Professor Noha Radwan is lively and brings fourth films, songs and poetry to spice things up. Her English is as strong as her Arabic. Her mysteriousness adds to her quite colorful character.
Class is very informative. Lectures can get kind of boring but the readings are very interesting. The class offers a great scope on philosophy, poetry and art in the early Islamic period. A lot of people tend to drop the class because the first reading was a bit challenging, but the class gets more interesting.
Note to future students: do not purchase every book the professor lists, because he scans all of the excerpts into Courseworks for you to print out; you really only need to purchase Islam by Fazlur, because you're expected to read the whole book. A lot of students enroll in this class expecting to receive an easy A minus, but I want to warn future students ahead of time that you will need to work for even a B+; I know a few people that made extremely poor grades in this class, so don't think you can just breeze through the semester. That said, I made an A. How did I make that A? I showed up for almost every single class, I spoke during discussion sections, I actually did all of the readings, and I made it known to both the professor and my TA that I wanted to learn the most that I could from the course. This is a large class and it's very easy to become invisible, and it's definitely impossible to speak up during class, so I suggest trying to go to at least one office visit with the professor, but make sure the visit is for a valid reason; for instance, perhaps you could ask the professor to clarify a point he made in class or ask for additional information on something you were interested in. Although the class covers a great deal of information, the midterm and finals are very doable if you keep detailed notes. I suggest writing small blurbs about each individual you cover i…
Kenan is by far the worst TA I've ever had. He did nothing to prepare us for the class, seemed to have no clue what Saliba was teaching, and had no idea what was on the exam. He never gave us our curved midterm grades and gave us no review material. The other TA's apparently expanded upon Saliba's lectures and gave study guides. But not Kenan. Kenan sent us two sentences with the format of the exam the night before. In class he mumbled at the board for half the semester until he realized that if he just had us discuss in groups, he wouldn't have to do any work. It was truly the most pointless hour of my week and the most productive thing I did in that class was write a paper for another class. Avoid Kenan if you can.
Section participation. Midterm and Final. Radwan provides detailed ID list for study before the tests. Optional short extra credit essay.
Depends heavily on your TA. Everybody is assigned the same weekly readings, with additional assignments managed by individual TAs. Keep in mind that you compete for your grade with the students in your section. My TA, Mimi Hanaoka, gave light response queries for each week's readings and heavily weighted class responsiveness, making my section rather laid back and enjoyable, but one of my friends was in a section where murderous amounts of work were assigned and all the students were gunning for an A, making it the equivalent of an extra class. Be very choosy about your TA and section.