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America’s First Muslim College (Reza Aslan, 8/19/10, Daily Beast)

Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, is aiming to become the first accredited Muslim college in the U.S. Founded by America’s best known and most highly respected Muslim cleric, Hamza Yusuf, the school will function, according to its website, at a level “comparable to the best of religious seminaries and general institutions of higher education the U.S.” The curriculum will be based in Islamic studies and Arabic but also will contain humanities and social sciences. [...]

aytuna began as a modest Islamic seminary nestled in the mellow suburbs of Hayward, California, in 1996. Its goal was to revive the traditional Islamic sciences, though with a distinctly American flavor, so as to train a new generation of American imams who could relate to the unique cultural identity of the American Muslim community.

For years mosques needing trained and qualified imams to lead their congregations have been forced to import them from countries like Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, countries whose customs and traditions are far removed from America’s. For Sheikh Hamza, as he is known, such a situation created a huge cultural divide between the imam and his congregation.

“You can’t have somebody from Egypt give a fatwa to people who are living in America, but that’s what’s been happening,” he told me in an interview last year. “If you don’t know the custom of a people, you can’t help them navigate their spiritual and legal concerns.”

After graduating its first class of seminary students in 2008, Zaytuna’s board decided to make the difficult transition from an Islamic seminary to a full-fledged college—the first four-year, accredited, liberal arts Muslim college in the United States. Students need not be Muslim to attend the school, though at present the first incoming class of students has only two majors to choose from: Islamic law and theology and Arabic language. The school hopes eventually to hand out degrees in science, math, literature—all the disciplines one would expect to study at any liberal arts college in America.

Zaytuna views its attempt to create a Muslim college in the U.S. as a vital part of Islam’s acculturation into American society. The school points out that with 6 million to 8 million Muslims in the U.S. and a rapidly growing base of Muslims in Europe and Canada, few institutions exist that can train students in the varied sciences of Islam while at the same time instilling in them what the school calls “a sophisticated understanding of the intellectual history and culture of the West.” Zaytuna envisions its graduates working as Muslim community and religious leaders, entering into public service, and continuing and succeeding at graduate and professional schools.