Spring 2024 REL 432 In God’s Country

Our seminar will probe the relationship between authority of God and human beings in Islamic sociopolitical life. What does it mean to dwell in God’s Islamic country? What does polity, law and economy look like in God’s country? Who must rule, 1) God, 2) human beings individually or collectively, OR 3) both, and how? Who prescribes the Law by which a human society has to live: God, human beings or both, and how? And what about economy? Does God have an economic system in mind? What are the burdens of God’s economy? We will seek answers to these questions in the mirror of Islamic political and economic thought, Shariah law, and past and present civilizational experience.