As the controversy surrounding the Islamic center to be built near New York's ground zero continues, it'll be interesting to see if the anti-mosquers will work themselves into a huff about a related potential flap on the horizon: Zaytuna College, which hopes to be the nation's first accredited Muslim college.
The school, set to open in Berkeley, Calif. (where else?), next week, is still just a blip on the media radar. "Thus far, Zaytuna has yet to receive much criticism from the anti-Islam forces that have lately spanned the country, picketing mosques and Islamic centers in California, Tennessee, Wyoming, and New York, or planning 'burn the Koran' rallies in suburban churches," writes The Daily Beast's Reza Aslan.
Founded by Hamza Yusuf, the nation's best-known Muslim cleric, Zaytuna began as a modest Islamic seminary with the goal of eliminating the need for American mosques to import foreign imams. "If you don't know the custom of a people, you can't help them navigate their spiritual and legal concerns," Sheik Hamza told Aslan.
In 2008, it graduated its first class of seminary students, and the school's board decided to seek accreditation as a four-year college. Writes Aslan:
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.