Tuesday is the first day of class at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. Christian and Jewish colleges have long been a part of the American education system. But Zaytuna wants to become the very first accredited Muslim college in the US. And co-founder Shaykh Hamza Yusuf explains his vision for the school.
We've set out to be accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. We started that process. It takes 4 to 8 years. And hopefully we'll become a full-fledged accredited college in the United States.
What you have been hearing and the world has been hearing about this proposed Islamic center, community center and mosque near Ground Zero and all of the uproar about Muslim Americans in the country. Have you got any criticism over the college? Have you seen any protest? You have any concerns about that?
Well, I think the same people that are criticizing the Ground Zero or mosque nearby, whatever it is, I mean the same people that are vocal in that, in the media are also criticizing us and other organizations. I think it's just par for the course right now. Islam is an acceptable target to be prejudicial. Torture Islam is really politically correct still. But I think that's gonna change. I think a lot of good Americans are waking up and realizing a lot of the jingoism here, the xenophobia. Muslims have been in the United States from the start. They were here at the founding of this country and there are many books that have proven that fact. So Islam is here, is here to stay and I think we need to make the best of the pluralism of our nation.
You are only offering two majors. What are those majors?
Right now, we are offering Islamic law and
theology as a major and the Arabic language as a major. And we have a very, very good curriculum. It's been developed and worked on.
How you plan to expand your curriculum beyond these two majors? I’m sure that's part of what you like to do.
Well, we hope, we hope, yeah, as time progresses, we hope that we get the type of support that's necessary, the type of endowments. It takes a lot of money to really create a full-fledged college. But every college in the United States started out, very small generally, with rare exception of some of the major philanthropists that started a college. University of Chicago with Rockefeller money, Standford with Stanford railroad money. So, but we hope, I think our community is realizing the importance of having our own academic institutions in the Unites States.
