Dr. Robert Crews is a Professor of History at Stanford University. In this 32-minute video, he traces the impact of globalization on Islam from the late 19th century to today and explains how the religion has adapted to the forces of globalization in addition to being shaped by them. Dr. Crews ends by describing how the expansion of the Internet has affected Islam.
A free classroom-friendly discussion guide that complements and expands upon Dr. Crews' video is available for download below. Students prepare for the video by researching the extent of Islam worldwide and in their local community. After watching the video, they work as a class to investigate the ways in which technology has influenced global Islam before reviewing what they learned throughout the unit. The discussion guide contains a complete transcript of the video and is appropriate for advanced secondary students and university students.
The video lecture and guide were made possible through the support of U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center funding (to Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies) under the auspices of Title VI, Section 602(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965.