The courses listed below are provided by the JHU Public Course Search. This listing provides a snapshot of immediately available courses and may not be complete.
Course registration information can be found on the Student Information Services (SIS) website.
Note that courses other than those listed below may be approved by the Islamic Studies DUS for credit toward the minor in Islamic Studies.
Arabic courses are offered by the Center for Language Education.
| Course # (Section) | Title | Day/Times | Instructor | Location | Term | Course Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS.100.118 (02) | Introduction to the Middle East | MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM | Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali | Krieger 170 | Fall 2025 | Where is the Middle East? What is it exactly in the Middle of? What, if anything, defines it, and who gets to do the defining? This introductory course poses such questions. Whilst promising no easy answers, it will nevertheless introduce students who have no prior knowledge of the Middle East to the region. Emphasis will be placed on the history, geography, languages, religions, and culture of the pre-modern and modern Middle East. Students will also be exposed to different methods and approaches to the academic study of the region. The course, while at the introductory level, is reading and writing intensive. |
| AS.375.301 (01) | Third Year Arabic | MWF 11:00AM - 11:50AM | Jafire, Sana | Fall 2025 | Designed to enhance students' ability to read, discuss, and write about various topics covered in traditional and contemporary Arabic texts. Recommended Course Background: AS.375.216 or equivalent. | |
| AS.375.215 (01) | Second Year Arabic | MW 10:00AM - 10:50AM, TTh 10:30AM - 11:20AM | Jafire, Sana | Krieger 300 | Fall 2025 | Designed to bring students up to competency level required for third/fourth year Arabic. Students will consolidate and expand their mastery of the four basic skills acquired in AS.375.115-116. More authentic material--written, audio, and visual--will be used, and culture will be further expanded on as a fifth skill. Recommended Course Background: AS.375.115-116 or equivalent. |
| AS.130.368 (01) | Nomads and Empires: Water in the Ancient Near East | TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM | Harrower, Michael James | Gilman 119 | Fall 2025 | Water and its histories reveal deep similarities and pivotal differences among human societies that are critical to understanding the human past and our future. Environments are often defined by water availability and periodicity, water is a frequent theme of religious traditions and a common point of political conflict. The hydraulic hypothesis, one of the longest-standing potential explanations for the rise of the world’s earliest civilizations, claims that organizational requirements of large-scale irrigation spawned ancient political hierarchies and cities. Archaeologists now know irrigation was not the only factor responsible for the origins of ancient states, but water management was important to agriculture in every region of ancient state formation. This course explores economic and social histories of water in the ancient Near East. It examines water’s diverse roles in ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Levantine and South Arabian agriculture, politics, ritual and religion, including water’s interconnected significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. |
| AS.375.401 (01) | Fourth Year Arabic | TTh 12:00PM - 12:50PM | Jafire, Sana | Krieger 521 | Fall 2025 | This is an introductory course to different periods of the Arabic literature. Selections of famous Arabic poetry and short prose works are the substance of the course. |
| AS.100.118 (01) | Introduction to the Middle East | MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM | Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali | Krieger 170 | Fall 2025 | Where is the Middle East? What is it exactly in the Middle of? What, if anything, defines it, and who gets to do the defining? This introductory course poses such questions. Whilst promising no easy answers, it will nevertheless introduce students who have no prior knowledge of the Middle East to the region. Emphasis will be placed on the history, geography, languages, religions, and culture of the pre-modern and modern Middle East. Students will also be exposed to different methods and approaches to the academic study of the region. The course, while at the introductory level, is reading and writing intensive. |
| AS.100.118 (03) | Introduction to the Middle East | MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM | Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali | Krieger 170 | Fall 2025 | Where is the Middle East? What is it exactly in the Middle of? What, if anything, defines it, and who gets to do the defining? This introductory course poses such questions. Whilst promising no easy answers, it will nevertheless introduce students who have no prior knowledge of the Middle East to the region. Emphasis will be placed on the history, geography, languages, religions, and culture of the pre-modern and modern Middle East. Students will also be exposed to different methods and approaches to the academic study of the region. The course, while at the introductory level, is reading and writing intensive. |
| AS.375.115 (01) | First Year Arabic | MWF 9:00AM - 9:50AM, TTh 9:00AM - 9:50AM | Jafire, Sana | Krieger 300 | Fall 2025 | Introductory course in speaking, listening, reading, and writing Modern Standard Arabic. Presents basic grammatical structures and a basic vocabulary. Through oral-aural drill in classroom, tapes in Language Laboratory, and reading/writing exercises, students attain a basic level of competence on which they can build in subsequent years of study. No Satisfactory/ Unsatisfactory |
| AS.100.118 (04) | Introduction to the Middle East | MW 12:00PM - 12:50PM, F 1:30PM - 2:20PM | Noor, Rao Mohsin Ali | Krieger 170 | Fall 2025 | Where is the Middle East? What is it exactly in the Middle of? What, if anything, defines it, and who gets to do the defining? This introductory course poses such questions. Whilst promising no easy answers, it will nevertheless introduce students who have no prior knowledge of the Middle East to the region. Emphasis will be placed on the history, geography, languages, religions, and culture of the pre-modern and modern Middle East. Students will also be exposed to different methods and approaches to the academic study of the region. The course, while at the introductory level, is reading and writing intensive. |
| AS.130.364 (01) | Archaeology of Arabia | TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM | Harrower, Michael James | Gilman 130G | Fall 2025 | This course examines the archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula from the earliest Paleolithic in the region (ca. 1.5 million years ago) through the first millennium of the Islamic era (ca. AD 1600). We will review basic geology and environmental conditions, examine the development of animal herding and crop cultivating lifeways, and study the rise of ancient complex societies and civilizations. |