Your midterm essay should be an original analysis of the way one or two Muslim writers address one specific topic in Islamic thought that is of particular interest to you. It should analyze just a small portion of one or more of the primary texts that we have studied so far. Please be sure to keep a clear distinction between your different sources - don't just lump them all together and say that "Islam teaches that...." You may choose any topic that falls within the general rubric of theology and is addressed by our texts, but I suggest you choose something we have discussed as a class. I imagine that 5-6 pages should be sufficient for this first essay. For your final paper, you will get to expand this essay to include several other kinds of primary sources, so be thinking now about what other Muslim perspectives on your topic you would like to include.
By "analyzing how a Muslim writer addresses a topic," I don't mean simply repeating or summarizing what the writer says about the topic. You should dig beneath the author's words to find out something about the author and his thinking that is not immediately obvious from his words. This is a creative process. There is no formula for it. It requires lots of time, lots of reading and rereading of your primary text, and lots of mental effort. But in the end you should be able to say: "here is what I have discovered about this author: when he says x, he really means y, because he is assuming z, and I know that because of the way he argues for x." Or something like that. Your analysis should go beyond what the author says, but you should be able to justify it based on what the author says. That's the challenge of creatively analyzing primary texts: you must listen to the author carefully enough to hear more than he or she actually says, but what you hear should really come from the author, not from your own guesswork or personal opinions.
This assignment does not require any research outside of the class materials, but if you really feel you need something beyond the class texts, I will be glad to try to help you identify primary and secondary sources. Please be very thorough about citing secondary sources every time you rely on them, and cite specific verses and pages from your primary sources as often as possible (footnotes and parenthenthetical references are both fine). Any source that you use in any way should be cited, and listed in the bibliography, no matter how little you drew on the source - even if the source just gave you general background information, or even if the information you gained from it could be considered common knowledge. Verbatim quotes must be enclosed in quotation marks. I want to know exactly what are your own ideas, and what you got from someone else, so that I can see how your own thought process is working. The only sources you do not need to cite are our class web site and discussions. I make these requirements stringent both because I don't want you to commit plagiarism accidentally, and also because I want to understand your thought processes. You do not need to follow any specific rules for formatting your footnotes, as long as they provide enough information for the source of your information to be identified precisely. When citing material on the web, give complete web addresses and specific directions for finding the exact part of the page or web site you are citing. If you wish for some formatting guidelines, I suggest you start learning the rules given in Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
Essays will be graded on how well they fulfill the assignment, on the quality and clarity of your writing, and on the depth and care and originality of your analysis of primary texts. I will NOT grade you based on whether I think your interpretations are correct, so feel free to express your ideas, even if you aren't sure of them. I want to see your mind at work!