The Advanced Islamic Studies program trains students to apply the interpretive methodologies they acquired in the Intermediate Program directly to the Qurʾān and Hadith, and to study advanced Islamic law, particularly civil, criminal, and family law, through those same sources. A student who completes the program will be able to explain how Islamic school derives law from the Qurʾān and Hadith, and will also have direct command of the hadith sciences as practiced by the master traditionists (muḥaddithūn) and applied to the criticism of hadith.
The full-time student completes their course work with the completion of 35 courses covered in 53 classes over a span of 6 semesters. Those students who complete the course will be able to represent and re-present the content of the Oral Tradition within their particular context. The student who completes the course gains the critical ability to represent Islam through his/her knowledge of the fundamental sources, as well as being capable of re-presenting these living sources of guidance in light of the challenges of modern day living. In addition, we believe that a student who studies at Darul Qasim at the Advanced level will be able to do the following:
Please e-mail info@darulqasim.org.
It is vital that people have access to a source of Islamic knowledge that is authentic, reliable and relevant. Much like any other discipline (religious or secular), knowledge is a trust and must reside with scholarship. Scholars who have dedicated their lives to the preservation, learning, and distribution of the Islamic intellectual heritage must be considered the sole custodians and distributors of this trust. This knowledge must be accessible to anyone who wishes to seek it.
Muslims throughout their intellectual history have always shown this level of professionalism since the very outset of Islam. Understanding the context in which Muslims live has always been a prerequisite to disseminating Islamic knowledge. At Darul Qasim, we have faculty members who are graduates of both secular universities as well as traditional Islamic institutions. Our scholars understand the culture and psyche of contemporary academic discourse.
The Advanced Islamic Studies program is a two-year program, that moves students from the interpretive tools of the intermediate curriculum into direct engagement with the Qurʾān and Hadith, and into advanced study of Islamic law.
Year One
The first year studies Hadith from the perspective of a school of law, with particular attention to the Ḥanafī school, using law-focused hadith collections, including al-Imam Ṭaḥāwī’s Sharḥ Maʿānī al-Āthār, Sunan al-Tirmidhī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, and Mālik’s al-Muwaṭṭā (Muḥammad and Yaḥyā’s recensions). Students work through two sections of al-Hidāyah alongside a course in Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, tracing how law is derived from the Qurʾān and Hadith. The year gives particular attention to how apparently conflicting revelatory texts are reconciled, and trains students to apply the framework of uṣūl al-fiqh to resolve tensions between hadith that appear to contradict one another.
Year Two
The second year studies Hadith primarily from the perspective of the muḥaddith (expert scholar) rather than the jurist. Students study Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim in near entirety, along with the sciences of rijāl (hadith transmitters) and ʿilal (hidden defects in hadith transmission). Advanced Hadith Methodology is studied through Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s al-Muqaddimah, which gives students both the technical vocabulary and critical apparatus of the classical hadith sciences and introduces students to both internal and external critiques to various theories in ʿulūm al-ḥadīth (sciences of Hadith).
