Introduction

This blog is addressed to my students in HIST 3805, History of Islamic Civilization, at Nipissing University in winter term 2009. Anyone is free to read it and comment on the material, especially if you are named David B. Edwards.

The purpose of the blog is to help students write the best possible paper in their final assignment for the course. The assignment is an essay based on Edwards' Before Taliban, and I expect it to be quite a challenge, even for those who have done reasonably well in the first two essays.

I know from long experience that only a very few people will come up to me in class to ask for help getting a handle on this material. A few will write me an e-mail. Some may even come to my office during office hours. Except for the last one, none of these settings are particularly conducive any in-depth commentary. Even if I give a brilliant answer well suited to a student's particular needs, a student may find it hard to remember the insight gained as she or he rushes off to other work.

So I am going to use this forum as method of dumping ideas and questions that students may want to consider when picking their topic or approach. Comments are welcome and will not show up immediately -- I will be moderating them. So you can write a comment that you don't want posted, though an e-mail message might be better in that case. If you would share your questions however they may help somebody else.