Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA History and French

Combine a specialist study of French culture with a range of diverse historical periods.

  • Duration: 4 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: VR11 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad
  • Study with a language

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Scholarships and bursaries are available to eligible Home/EU students, this is in addition to the government package of maintenance grants.

Course unit details:
Histories of the Islamic World

Course unit fact file
Unit code HIST10172
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 1
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Offered by History
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

 Islam has deeply shaped the contours of our world for nearly 1500 years. Not only is it one of the largest faiths in human history, but its political, social, cultural, and intellectual ramifications have been vast. The Islamic world has historically reached far beyond the Middle East, its cradle, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia and from the steppes of Russia to the tropical forests of Indonesia and West Africa. This module examines Islam’s role in creating states, fostering trade, and circulating ideas throughout this region; it provides a key foundation for understanding how these transformations shaped our modern, globalised world.

 

Pre/co-requisites

HIST10171 is restricted to History programmes, History joint-honours programmes, R&T programmes, and CAHAE History single-honours programmes (please check your programme regulations for further details).
 

 

 

Aims

 

The course aims to meet the following objectives: 

  • To provide a history of Islam and its influences across and beyond the Middle East. 

  • To introduce students to major developments in politics, society, and culture in the Islamic world and Islamic societies. 

  • To question positive and negative misconceptions about Islam and its civilizations; to make connections between these fallacies and how Islam has been interpreted through time. 

  • To expose students to major themes in non-Western and world history and foster comparison between different regions of the world. 

  • To refine your skills in reading and source analysis, note taking, argumentation, and academic writing. 

  • To develop your ability to think critically and humanely about our past, and, by extension, to apply this ability to problems in the here-and-now. 

 

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of the module students will be able: 

  • To grasp major themes in the Islamic world from its origins to the beginning of the modern period and be familiar with processes of historical change across the region. 

  • To discern key patterns in non-Western history, to be comfortable with comparative analysis between different regions of the world, and to be sensitive to problems of historical comparison.  

  • To recognise and understand major theoretical issues in non-Western history. 

  • To distinguish, through our readings, between primary and secondary sources; and to begin to develop a critical ability to read and deal with historical primary sources. 

Intellectual skills

Students will 

  • apply a range of theoretical approaches to a range of empirical case studies, 

  • demonstrate their ability to bring the qualities of one to bear on the other, and 

  • regularly practise how to extract arguments from academic writing. 

Practical skills

 

Students will learn how to 

  • prioritise tasks, 

  • identify arguments in scholarly writing, 

  • write critically, and 

  • engage in comparative analysis. 

 

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Critical reading ability 

  • Clear, precise writing ability 

  • Ability to engage in critical discussions 

Employability skills

Other
Especially at this moment of history, an understanding of the Islamic world is a key skill for many employment sectors. Finance and international trade increasingly involve contact with Islamic countries; Britain¿s large populations of Muslims makes Islamic history important for public-facing employment inside the U.K. This module develops the normal skills of a first-year history module of critical reading, writing, presentation, and analysis.

Assessment methods

Map quiz 10%
Weekly quizzes 45%
Source Analysis Essay 45%

 

Feedback methods

Feedback method

Formative or Summative

Oral feedback in seminar discussions

Formative

Written feedback on all coursework and assessments

Summative

Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Formative

 

Recommended reading

 

Choueiri, Youssef M., ed. A Companion to the History of the Middle East. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

Gelvin, James. The Modern Middle East: A History, 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Robinson, Francis. Islam and Muslim History in South Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Laura Veccia Vaglieri, “The Patriarchal and Umayyad Caliphates,” in The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 1A, eds., P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton and Bernard Lewis (Cambridge: University Press, 2005): 57- 103.

Fred McGraw Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1981).

Irfan Shahid, “Pre-Islamic Arabia,” in The Cambridge History of Islam, eds., P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton and Bernard Lewis (Cambridge: University Press, 2005): 3-29.

Montgomery Watt, “Muhammad,” in The Cambridge History of Islam, eds., P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton and Bernard Lewis (Cambridge: University Press, 2005): 30-56.

H.R. Roemer, “The Safavid Period,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 6, eds., Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart (Cambridge: University Press, 2006): 189-350.
 

 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Ethan Menchinger Unit coordinator
Steven Pierce Unit coordinator

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