nascent state. Here I can only provide a few examples. They reflect the same
wide spectrum: from those where the academic study of religions has not
emerged so far, to those where a hybrid curriculum exists, to those where the
full spectrum is found, from theological/confessional approaches to those of
the modern academic study of religions.
In Morocco, a course on ‘Schools of Beliefs and Thoughts and the History
of Religions’ is offered in the final year of the undergraduate program in Islamic
studies at the Université Hassan II in Casablanca. It is not clear whether any
courses that could be considered as belonging to the academic study of religions
are offered in the programs in Islamic studies found at the University of
Mohammad V in Rabat, founded in 1957, the University of Cadi Ayyad in
Marrakech and the University of Mohammed I in Oudja, both founded in 1978.
Only this last university offers an undergraduate degree in history and
civilization besides its program in Islamic studies.
In Syria, too, there is no program in the modern academic study of religions,
but for a radically different reason. While Morocco preserved a pre-modern
Islamic Studies program, Syria has undergone a process of secularization dating
back to the new, modernized and westernized elites who gradually took power
in various sectors during and after the French mandate period (1920–1946).
By the end of the 1950s, the socialist ideology of the Baathist party had become
dominant, and it increasingly secularized national institutions, including
universities. This process did not eliminate the more traditional field of Islamic
Studies. Instead, European-style faculties of law were created and promoted,
to the extent that for the last few decades no judge has been able to work in
the Syrian judicial system without a secular law degree, although a person may
have both Islamic and secular legal training. At the University of Damascus
the more historic faculty of Islamic law offers one of its four programs on
‘Beliefs and Religions’, although I have been unable to ascertain its content.
In Iran, the situation is different still. There is a vibrant Institute for Inter-
religious Dialogue in Tehran, which makes an effort at a modern academic
study of religions within its educational activities and courses. In addition,
according to Mahdi Hasanzadeh of the University of Mashad (personal
communication to Gregory Alles), the academic study of religions is pursued
at the state-funded universities of Mashad, Tehran, Kashan, and Tabriz, and
in a newly founded program (2007) in Qum.
In the Palestinian Occupied Territories, two universities are worth mention-
ing. The Al-Quds University established a Faculty of Qur’Çn and Islamic
Studies in 1996 with two departments: the department of Da’wa and the
principles of religion (usl al-d¥n)—the Arabic term da’wah, for which the
normal English translation, ‘mission’, is too narrow, is not translated on the
English website of the University—and the department of Qur’Çn and Islamic
studies. According to its English online description:
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NORTH AFRICA AND WEST ASIA
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