History of Islam
Cod: 31056
Department: DCSG
ECTS: 6
Scientific area: History
Total working hours: 156
Total contact time: 15

This course unit offers, through a diachronic perspective, a global view of the history of the Islamic world and of the main aspects of its civilization. The course unit also analyses and discusses issues such as cultural and religious diversity within Islam, as well as features of the existing relationship between the Islamic world and the West, in particular in the contemporary world.

  1. Islamism
  2. Fundamentalism
  3. Koran
  4. Prophetism

• Understanding the evolution of the Islamic world in its multiple aspects – namely, religion, politics, culture
• Recognising historical facts and trends relevant to the relationship between the Islamic world and the West

1. The Islamic religion
2. The birth of Islam
3. The expansion and affirmation of Islam
4. The three Islamic empires
5. The collision of Islam with the Modernity: challenges and confronts

Civilização Muçulmana.Dicionário Temático Larousse, Lisboa, Circulo de Leitores, 2000.
DONINI, Pier Giovanni, O Mundo Islâmico do século XVI à actualidade, Lisboa, Editorial Presença, 2008.
DUCELIER, Alain, KAPLAN, Michel, MARTIN, Bernadette, MICHEAU Françoise, A Idade Média no Oriente – Bizâncio e o Islão dos Bárbaros aos Otomanos, Lisboa, Publicações D. Quixote, 1994.
SOURDEL, Dominique, SOURDEL, Janine, La Civilization de l’Islam Classique, Paris, Arthaud,1983.
VÁZQUEZ BORAU, José Luís, As Religiões do Livro (Judaísmo, Cristianismo e Islamismo), Lisboa, Paulus Editora, 2008.

Online learning with continuous supervision favoring asynchronous communication (Moodle platform).
Students have to perform the tasks requested by the teacher: essays, critical recensions, reports, protocols, etc. All works will be evaluated and/or classified.

Continuous assessment is privileged: 2 digital written documents (e-folios) during the semester (40%) and a final digital test, Global e-folio (e-folio G) at the end of the semester (60%). In due time, students can alternatively choose to perform one final exam (100%).

Students are required to have access to a computer with Internet connection and an e-mail address as well as to have computer literacy from the users' perspective.