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Learner Reviews & Feedback for The Cosmopolitan Medieval Arabic World by Universiteit Leiden

4.8
stars
412 ratings

About the Course

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? Did you know
that the Middle East under Muslim rule in those days was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship? Did you know
that Islam in its formative period was heavily influenced by existing cultures in the region, like Indian, Greek, Persian and Byzantine culture? Did
you know that for many centuries after the establishment of the Muslim Empire the majority of the population remained largely Christian and
Jewish? Did you know that they held a protected status in Islamic law? Did you know that this generally open-minded, curiou...
...

Top reviews

KW

May 30, 2022

​I learned so much in this course. I definitelyrecommend doing the extra readings and assignments in the honors track. The extra knowledge is worth the effort. I am delighted I found this course!

EN

Aug 6, 2024

I started to listen to this course out of curiosity but I have learned so much that I have never heard elsewhere before. The videos were great, the readings were very diverse and interesting.

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101 - 125 of 134 Reviews for The Cosmopolitan Medieval Arabic World

By Camila F

Jan 17, 2019

I really enjoyed it.

By Mohammad F K

Dec 23, 2023

Very Knowlegeable

By Cristiana M

Aug 26, 2021

Very educational

By Nafisha B M

Jun 7, 2021

Very informative.

By francisco v r

Sep 6, 2020

EXCELLENT COURSE

By Dave R

Apr 12, 2020

Excellent course

By Pedro R

Sep 15, 2022

Excellent!!!!!

By Historiando c F A

May 27, 2024

Curso perfeito

By Joanne J

Mar 29, 2022

great course

By Mohd A

May 2, 2020

excellent!

By Mohamed H

Dec 26, 2018

i love you

By Ana M J L

Mar 6, 2022

excellent

By Adrian

Sep 11, 2024

alberto

By saf a

Apr 2, 2021

Thanks

By Veronica E p

May 18, 2020

I LIKE

By Tony J

Feb 1, 2025

This course presents a very refreshing view point for people that live in Western Europe and are interested in how their society developed and what the link is with the medieval arabic world. I have learned that the influence of the arabic world goes far beyond what I initially expected. Besides the current day impact the medieval arabic world still has on our lives today I was most surprised by the level of development of cities like Baghdad around the 10th century. Good clear lecturers and free course material. They could have updated the links in this course though. Many links to articles did not work. (4/5 stars)

By Joana M

May 3, 2020

In gereral, the course in The Cosmopolitan Medieval Arabic World is very interesting.

The different knowledge shared along the weeks is associated with sociey, its infrastructures, religion, commercial activities - trade, slaves and mameluks, cultural development, orientalism and translation movements.

In my opinion, from all the readins, only two of them were not that interesting and I feel that I lost too much time paying attention to it. The exams by the end of each module should be more straight to the information learnt.

Overall, the knowledge I got from it will be very important in my job.

By Amy S

Apr 10, 2024

Phenomenal course! Really enjoyed learning about the different topics covered and taking part in forum discussions. However, I'm only rating 4 stars because I was unable to access some of the material like the podcasts as the links didn't work or material wasn't available for whatever reason. Other than that, I'd like to give a big thank you to Prof. Petra Sijpesteijn, the assistants and course peers.

By Nina F

Jan 14, 2021

This was a very enlightening and informative course. I learned about many things that I didn't know about before. I greatly enjoyed the lectures and the readings and am now very interested in learning more about the Medieval Arabic world. My only issue with this course is that the subtitles for the videos need to be improved. There is a lot of misspelling in the subtitles for the videos.

By Emily C

Mar 20, 2021

There is some engaging material in this course. In fact, I think I will probably access and refer to some of the materials again in the future. However, the best thing about the course was that I learnt that I could register for a JSTOR account and read a certain number of articles for free each month.

By Leonie K

Jan 1, 2023

A very interesting course which opened my eyes for the history of the medieval world.

Like with other Coursera courses, the transcripts were te weakest links in the course. Obviously there is no one that is proofreading them before they are published.

By Fraser H

Jan 26, 2025

It's a well structured and informative course that I enjoyed doing. The only reason for not giving 5 stars is some of the course material is inaccessible, either no longer at the URL provided or behind a paywall which is frustrating.

By Lowell N

Mar 8, 2021

Interesting subject, generally high-quality presentations, and well organized. Covered a broad range of issues (economic, social, governmental, scientific) to give a better feel for what was going on in this area at the time.

By Nick R

Feb 8, 2024

Overall, a very good introduction to the medieval Islamic world. Down points were that some of the reading was extremely heavy and the Soundcloud files often didn't work.

By Mehwish A

Apr 5, 2021

It was an amazing experience studying this course with Coursera, it has many fascinating stories which caught my attention and I would like to revisit them someday.