A Student's Notes on 'Understanding Islam' Course
Introduction

Changes to be made

This site will be eventually overhauled to consolidate a student's notes on both the St. Peter's Church "Understanding Islam" Course (covered below) and the NLC "The Influence of Islamic Civilization" Course.

Welcome and explanation

Hi, fellow students. Here are a few notes I (Rod Anderson) made -- and some related websites I checked out -- solely for my own purposes as a student in Dr. Ian Ritchie's excellent course "Understanding Islam", which was held in November and December 2004 at St. Peter's Church in Cobourg. (I can't seem to take things in without making copious notes -- probably it's a treatable condition.) Anyway, these notes may be of no value to you -- and that's fine. I'm not selling anything. But I just thought that some students, walking down the same pathways, might find another student's notes and questions of interest. And, if so, feel free to browse.

Because they were prepared quickly and simply as course notes, I'm sure you'll find a number of typos sprinkled throughout. But hopefully the meaning will be clear.

The course has now ended but I plan on leaving these website pages here for a while as I gradually complete my readings and web investigations. So feel free to browse over the next few months if you find this of any use.

If you do happen to browse through these notes, do send me an email with any comments or corrections that occur to you. Thanks.

Caveat

I once had a friend who, a decade or so ago visited China. She commented that after being in China either 2 days or 20 full years you, as a visitor, felt you knew and understood the country -- but that in between 2 days and 20 years you realized you hadn't even begun to scratch the surface. I feel that way with Islam. I'm over the 2-day illusion of knowledgeability but a long long way from a 20-year reality of understanding -- and, with each additional book I read, I feel more and more ignorant about this complex subject. Welcome to the club.

Contents

Book Lists and Notes on Books Read

Notes on books read and still to read (required in our course, recommended in our course, and others I've stumbled upon)

Other Resources

The DVD we saw and Christos Hatzis' amazing 'Constantinople' production

Notes on our Mosque Visit

Reactions of a lay amateur

The Ontario Shariah Situation

A review of the proposals for Sharia Law now being considered by Ontario's Attorney General and comments (and website references) re supporting and opposing groups in the Muslim community

Inter-Faith Dialogue

Some consideration of writers (and other initiatives) dealing with inter-faith dialogue (both Christian-Islamic specifically and among all religions more generally) -- I know this was not really part of our course, though Dr. Ritchie did make some remarks from time to time on the effect of dialogue efforts on the depth of each dialoguer's faith

Other Links

A great many Islam-related website links have already been included in the foregoing notes; here are a few others (together with a summary of all the Islam-related links on this website)