Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ARA2146: Islamic Theological Traditions

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Muslim revelation and debates on authenticity: Qur'an and sunna

Introduction to theological schools

Arguing about God and its validity
Who is a believer? Community, creeds and heresy
Scholarly consensus
The imamate
Prophecy and miracles
Moral agency and moral value
Mystical theology

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	11	Seminar discussions and presentations
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	11	Lectures
Guided Independent Study	72	Preparation of each weeks reading
Guided Independent Study	56	Study to prepare for the formative and summative assessments

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Oral presentation on text or theme in class	20 minutes	1-7	Oral

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
50	50	0

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Examination	50	1.5 hours	1-7	Written and oral feedback
Essay	50	2,000 words	1-8	Written and oral feedback
	0
	0
	0
	0

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Exam	Exam 1.5 hours	1-8	August/September assessment period
Essay	Essay (2000 words)	1-7	August/September assessment period

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Norman Calder, Jawid Mojaddedi & Andrew Rippin, Classical Islam: sources of religious literature (London/New York 2001), esp. Chs 5-7.

Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trs. A. and R. Hamori (Princeton, 1980)

William Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds: a Selection (Edinburgh, 1994)

Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology (Edinburgh, 1997)

Tilman Nagel, The History of Islamic Theology (Princeton, 2000)

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford, 2016)

The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge, 2008)