The first Islamic College in the U.S. opens in Berkeley

So classes are underway in almost all districts in the Bay Area. They've also started at the Bay Area's esteemed institutions of higher education: Cal Berkeley started classes last week (go Bears), Stanford started this week (go Cardinal), and the latest addition to our local schools with national renown is Zaytuna.  Go...OK, they might not have a football team just yet, but the country's first four-year Islamic college is based right here in Berkeley and it's started its inaugural fall semester this week.

Zaytuna is a liberal arts college that's drawn students from across the country. The syllabus includes Islamic studies and the humanities, like history and philsophy. One of the people making it happen is Imam Zaid Shakir, an African-American convert to Islam who was born in Berkeley. I sat down with Shakir and asked him if he expected any conflict to arise from teaching both western philosophy and Islamic ideas.

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IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: I think what is important and what we want to emphasize is that there are great questions that philosophy has always tried to answer: What is justice? What is good? What are the sources of evil? Is a more perfect humany society possible? These are the questions we want to look at and in looking at those questions to see what various people from various schools have said.

So we're not shying away from "alien ideas" because at the end of the day human thought emanates from human beings and Allah the almight god has honored the human being (phrase in arabic) and we have ennobled the human being. So there are humans outside the Islamic tradition who are very noble and laudable, who have made very notable and laudable contributions to human knowledge, and we want our students to be exposed to that and then to have the confidence to be able to refute any sort of atheistic or skeptical ideas that they might be exposed to. So we want to arm them with the ability to negotiate with the world as it is and not to isolate themselves from the world and to be confident in seeing what Islam can contribute in a positive sense to the world.

BABA: You and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, you founded Zaytuna College, and you're two of the most respsected Islamic scholars--not only in America, but in the world, and you're both born and raised here. You're African-American. Yusef is white from Wallah-Wallah Washington. How significant is it that the first Islamic college in America be founded by American muslims?

SHAKIR: People's indigenous culture, their experiences, shape the way they understand and present Islam and that's a natural thing. So I think when you come to America it shouldn't be strange that scholars and community leaders are Americans. I think this is an idea that the Muslim world should get used to, otherwise there's a bit of hypocrisy going on that it is acceptable for Pakistanis to be Pakistani scholars, for Egyptians to be Egyptian scholars, for Libyans to be Libyan scholars, but somehow the idea of Americans being American Islamic scholars has not sunk in. So I think it's very important for us to all collectively get used to that idea and to understand the wisdom in it, and that really the community isn't going to advance to begin to achieve its full potential until that happens and there's always a role for the Muslim world for higher studies, specialized studies--there's always going to be that role to be played. But I think on the ground at the grassroots level, if we're going to go where we need to go, we're going to need people right from here.

BABA: So, do you think then that there would be some people in the Muslim world, kind of look towards American Islam,"American Islam," where you have the watered-down version, and there seems to be sometimes a disconnect between the Islam in the Islamic world and American Islam? Is there really that conflict there? Or is it unfounded?

SHAKIR: Well we don't think there is. But I think it's very important to realize and for our brothers and sisters in the Muslim world to realize that if they have the full-strength version and the place of Muslims in the world, the respect of Islam in the world, the efficacy of Muslim societies in the world in terms of their shaping global events and presenting solutions to global problems is so poor and miniscule--if that's the full strength version, then perhaps the watered-down version might be welcome.

BABA: One of the articles I read described Zaytuna college starting here as Berkeley's Islamic renaissance, and I was wondering if you saw Zaytuna college and Berkeley becoming kind of the new Andalucia, or the new old Baghdad, where Islamic thought flourished and contributed to world culture. Is that what you're looking at?

SHAKIR: In the long run that's what we would like to see. And I think this sort of endeavor if you don't aim high you're not going to get very far. So we're reaching for the stars and we hope that one day Zaytuna College will be a flourishing interdisciplinary university with students from all walks of life, faiths, religions, backgrounds, coming into a very vibrant intellectual culture that is contributing to the world, and that is helping to uplift Muslims and others, and to create a vision that motivates people to work for a better society and for the greater good. So that's definitely something we would like to see in the long run, no question.

BABA: Have you encountered any raised eyebrows regarding starting an Islamic college, any fear perhaps from the community in a post-9/11 world, "Oh, Muslims want to set up a college" -- have you gotten anything like that?

SHAKIR: Well I think there's been some noise from the usual suspects. I think the usual suspects are so well known they don't need naming. Anyway, we have to forge on. Most of the people in this country are people of good will who want to know the truth about Islam. Some who don't know Muslims have a negative opinion, but when they meet Muslims and they interact with Muslims that opinion changes. So I think it's important for us to capitalize on that fact, that people mean well, that most people want to understand, and it's very important for us to provide the means for them to understand.

So, I think it's time for people of good will in this country to stand up, and to defy the war-mongering throng, and that group of people, and to do what we know to be right, and not to be intimidated and silenced and to self-censor ourselves into irrelevance. None of the people I work with have any criminal records, have been involved with any sort of negativity, and we've converted to Islam because we've found something beneficial for us. And it's not our expectation that everyone's going to convert to Islam, but we do feel that there are positive things that Muslims can offer this society, and it's our responsibility to try to share those things and one way we can share them is by educating people who are qualified to let people know with clarity and vision and nuance what Islam is all about.

This interview originally aired on September 16, 2009.