This is an integrated introduction to Political Science and International Relations, designed for college and university students encountering these disciplines for the first time. Unlike conventional courses that treat PS and IR as separate subjects or teach institutions before theories, this curriculum is built on a different logic: theory first, application second and both disciplines taught side by side from the very beginning. Students receive their analytical lenses in Modules 1 through 4 — the foundational concepts, the political philosophies, the theories of domestic politics and the theories of international relations before they are asked to apply them to political systems, institutions, comparative cases, geopolitical competition and Pakistan's place in the world. A defining feature of this course is the integration of the Islamic intellectual tradition as a co-equal analytical framework throughout, not as a cultural supplement or a separate elective strand, but woven into every module as a genuine theoretical and philosophical alternative to Western frameworks. Ibn Khaldun is introduced alongside Waltz as an IR theorist. Al-Mawardi is studied alongside Locke as a political philosopher. Maqasid al-Shariah is applied alongside Rawlsian justice as an evaluative framework for human rights and governance. Students are expected to engage both traditions critically, to identify where they converge and where they diverge, and to draw on both in their own analysis. The course also extends beyond conventional PS and IR content to cover geopolitical theory and regional cases, narrative intelligence and media analysis and structured scenario building and strategic communication equipping students not only to understand the political world but to analyse it with professional rigour and communicate their analysis with clarity and precision. The course culminates in two capstone assessments: a Pakistan-focused applied analysis in Month 10 that tests students' capacity to integrate everything learned about domestic politics and IR into a coherent country-level analysis, and a final capstone in Month 12 in which students select a geopolitical case of their own choosing and produce a 2,500-word original analysis — deconstructing the dominant narrative, applying multiple theoretical frameworks including the Islamic tradition, mapping the geographic dimension, building scenarios, and defending an original analytical position. The student who completes this course will leave with something genuinely valuable: the ability to encounter any political situation and bring structured, theoretically grounded, multi-dimensional thinking to it. Learning Outcomes By the end of this course, students will be able to: • Define and deploy the foundational concepts of both Political Science and International Relations — power, authority, sovereignty, legitimacy, anarchy and the levels of analysis • Explain and apply the major theories of IR — Realism, Liberalism, Constructivism, Marxism and Dependency Theory and the Islamic IR tradition rooted in Ibn Khaldun • Explain and apply the major theories of Political Science — institutionalism, behaviouralism, rational choice, elite theory, pluralism, feminism and postcolonialism • Engage seriously with Western political philosophy (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Rawls) and Islamic political philosophy (Al-Mawardi, Ibn Khaldun, Iqbal, Maududi) as co-existing intellectual traditions • Analyse political events at both the domestic and international level using the agency-structure debate and the levels of analysis framework • Apply geopolitical theory — Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman, energy geography — to regional and global cases • Identify the theoretical assumptions, framing choices, logical fallacies and blind spots in existing political analyses • Apply the narrative inversion technique and the actors-interests-constraints-outcomes framework to deconstruct competing political narratives • Construct original, multi-dimensional political analyses that integrate PS theory, IR theory, the Islamic framework and geopolitical reasoning • Build structured scenarios — best case, worst case and most likely — grounded in rigorous causal logic • Communicate political analysis clearly and strategically, understanding the distinction between legitimate framing and deliberate deception