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Level 3: Theology 3: Eschatology is a Course

Level 3: Theology 3: Eschatology

Time limit: 365 days
10 credits

£400 Enrol

Full course description

As a registered charity, we charge course fees to cover our running costs. However, we aim to make our education accessible to as many people as possible and are therefore able to offer a 65% fee waiver. To make use of this fee waiver, please use the code AMI65 when purchasing your courses.

Students in need of further financial assistance should contact the education team at education@almahdi.edu to enquire about the possibility of further fee waivers. 

 

This course provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of eschatological themes within Islamic theology. Amongst other topics, it introduces students to topics such as the medieval debate over the possibility of bodily resurrection, personal identity, reward and punishment, the efficacy of prayer and repentance, intercession, and the different categories of individuals based on their obedience or lack thereof to God’s law. The course is based on Kashf al-murād, al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’s classical commentary on the final part of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād, one of the most important works of medieval Muslim theology in Shīʿī and Sunnī seminaries. By the end of this course students will be able to understand the key differences between the philosophers’ and theologians’ arguments for the possibility of bodily resurrection and appreciate the manner in which eschatological themes are discussed within the systematic framework of Islamic theology. 

 

Lesson 1      Issue 1: On the Possibility of Another World (Fī imkān khalq ʿālam ākhar)

Lesson 2      Issue 2: The Correctness of the Non-Existence of the World (Fī ṣiḥat al-ʿadam ʿalā al-ʿālam)

Issue 3: The Possibility of Non-Existence and its Quality (Fī wuqūʿ al-ʿadam wa kayfiyyatihi)

Lesson 3      Issue 3: The Possibility of Non-Existence and its Quality (Fī wuqūʿ al-ʿadam wa kayfiyyatihi) (continued)

Lesson 4      Issue 4: The Necessity of Bodily Resurrection (Fī wuqūb al-maʿād al-jismānī) (continued)

Lesson 5      Issue 4: The Necessity of Bodily Resurrection (Fī wuqūb al-maʿād al-jismānī) (continued)

Lesson 6      Issue 5: Reward and Punishment (Fī thawab wa-l-ʿiqāb)

Lesson 7      Issue 5: Reward and Punishment (Fī thawab wa-l-ʿiqāb) (continued)

Issue 6: On the Attributes of Reward and Punishment (Fī ṣifāt thawab wa-l-ʿiqāb)

Lesson 8      Issue 6: On the Attributes of Reward and Punishment (Fī ṣifāt thawab wa-l-ʿiqāb) (continued)

Lesson 9      Issue 7: On the Removal of One’s Good Sins and Excommunication (Fī al-iḥbāṭ wa-l-takfīr)

Issue 8: On the Impermanence of the Punishment of Major Sins (Fī inqiṭāʿ ʿadhāb aṣḥāb al-kabāʾir)

Lesson 10    Issue 9: On the Possibility of Forgiveness (Fī jawāz al-ʿafw)

Issue 10: On Intercession (Fī al-shafāʿa)

Lesson 11    Issue 11: On the Obligation of Repentance (Fī wujūb al-tawba)

Lesson 12    Issue 12: On the Divisions of Repentance (Fī aqsām al-tawba)

 

Prerequisites

Please note that level three courses are only available to those who have completed all courses in levels one and two. This is because the topics covered in level three require the historical and conceptual foundations which are built in levels one and two.

 

Hours of Study

16 hours

 

Assessment Method

Essay (100%)

 

Course Instructors

Dr Wahid Amin (Lecturer)

Dr Wahid Amin completed a BSc in Physics from Imperial College London and a PGCE from the Institute of Education, University College London. He then began his studies at the Al-Mahdi Institute and simultaneously completed a BA in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham, graduating from both in 2008. He went on to read for an MSt in the Study of Religions at the University of Oxford. His DPhil, also from Oxford, studied the metaphysics of necessary existence in the thought of the Persian polymath Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274). He joined AMI in 2015 as a Lecturer in Islamic Philosophy where he teaches courses on Islamic philosophy, theology, logic, and mysticism. He is also the Head of Publications at AMI Press and an Associate Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham. As an intellectual historian of Islam, his primary research interests revolve around post-classical Islamic philosophy and theology. He also maintains an interest in contemporary Islamic philosophy, the intersection between Islamic philosophy and political theory, and modern Shīʿī legal theory.

 

Professor Seyed Mohammad Seyed Ghari Fatemi (Tutor)

Professor Seyed Mohammad Seyed Ghari Fatemi spent thirteen years studying in the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of Qom between 1981 and 1994, completing his advanced studies (dars al-khārij) in Arabic literature, legal theory, jurisprudence, philosophy, and Islamic theosophy under prominent scholars such as Ayatollah Ḥusayn ʿAlī Muntaẓarī, Ayatollah Sayyid Muḥammad Rūhānī, and Ayatollah ʿAbd Allāh Javādī Āmulī. Alongside his seminary studies, he also completed an LLB (1984) and LLM (1991) in Public Law at the University of Tehran. He received his PhD from the Faculty of Law at the University of Manchester in 1999.

He has been working with AMI since 1995 and currently lectures on Islamic legal theory. He is a Professor of Comparative Human Rights, Islamic Hermeneutics and Legal theory, and Philosophy in the Faculty of Law at Shahid Beheshti University (Tehran) where he supervises masters and doctoral students researching a range of topics. Seyed Fatemi is also a full member of the Academy of Sciences of Iran and a member of the Department of Biomedical Ethics at the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences. He has previously taught in the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of Qom, at Mofid University (Qom), the University of Birmingham, and was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.

He has numerous publications to his name in Persian and English and has organised and presented at dozens of conferences in the fields of law, Islamic studies, and bioethics. He is the author of Human Rights in the Contemporary World (Ḥuqūq-i bashr dar jahān-i muʿāṣir). The first volume of this work (An Introduction to Theoretical Issues: Concepts, Foundations, Scope and Sources) was first published by the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Shahid Beheshti University and is now in its eighth edition. The second volume (Analytical Essays on Right and Liberties) is in its fifth edition, and a third volume (Islam and Human Rights) is forthcoming.