As my Islam class enters into fourth week, a lot of us are looking back trying to wrestle with all the information that we gained in this class. I would say this is true for a lot of students at the end of the block, but for us, it seems to be more so. I was told by some of my friends in the class with me that they had some of the most enjoyable, provoking, and arcane discussions during Islam. To complicate things, Islam is not the most irrelevant topic in today’s current events and politics. To know what Islam is seems to be vitally important to any person, and now this class must be summarized into the short answer that we give people, as well as the long answer for our final assignment. We are to write a 5-7 page paper telling a narrative that gives the history of Islam. This prompt is strange to be sure, and quite possibly impossible. In fact, when a student stated that this paper was impossible, Peter teasingly replied, “I know… and that’s why I assigned it.” How does one coalesce a religion into five pages? This I shall spend countless hours on, but I look forward to it. (I’m a religion major, and this is exactly the torture and punishment I look forward to taking on and conquering, so to speak.) So, as I go into this final week of the block, I’ll be seeking some fatwa (or rather advice, rulings on a matter) from the authors I have read these past three and a half weeks. May they decree a wonderful narrative for me to record.
