History of Islam
A 25 week course on Islamic history on Wednesday evenings (term time)
Starting September 2026
A 25-week face-to-face journey through the history of Islam and the West, taught by Shaykh Dr Ridhwan ibn Saleem at Royal Holloway University.
Begin your journey this September
- Wednesday evenings
- Based on the established LCI Civilisations History course
- Covers the rise of Islam, the Caliphates, Crusades, Mongols, Ottomans, Mughals, colonialism, modern ideologies, and the Muslim encounter with modernity
- Studies Islamic and Western history side by side
- Helps students understand how civilisations rise, interact, decline, and shape the modern world
Course curriculum
1. Introduction: Why Study Islamic History and the West?
2. The World Before Islam
3. The Prophet Muhammad and the Birth of the Ummah
4. Abu Bakr and the Wars of Apostasy
5. Umar ibn al-Khattab and the Great Conquests
6. Uthman, Ali, and the First Fitnah
7. The Umayyads and the Expansion of the Caliphate
8. The Abbasid Revolution and the Rise of Baghdad
9. Harun al-Rashid, Learning, Law, and Culture
10. Baghdad and the Urban World of Islam
11. Intellectual Life in the High Caliphate
12. Europe in the Early Middle Ages
13. Byzantium, Christendom, and the Muslim World
14. The Crusades and the Clash of Civilisations
15. Turks, Seljuks, and Islamic Renewal
16. Mongols, Catastrophe, and Reconstruction
17. Ibn Battuta and the Connected Muslim World
18. Mansa Musa and Islam in West Africa
19. The Ottoman Empire and the Gunpowder Age
20. Safavids, Mughals, and the Wider Muslim World
21. Europe, the Renaissance, and the Rise of the West
22. Enlightenment, Revolution, and Secular Modernity
23. Colonialism and the European World Empire
24. Nationalism, Reform, and Muslim Responses to Modernity
25. The Twentieth Century and the Making of the Modern World