There are more than 500 colleges and universities in the United States that pledge an affiliation to the Christian churches. There are at least nine Buddhist colleges and universities, and three Jewish institutions of higher education. There is at least one Hindu institution, Hindu University of America in Orlando.
Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif., founded by three prominent Islamic scholars, became the nation’s first fully accredited Muslim institution of higher learning, welcoming its first cohort of students this fall. With five faculty members and 15 students in its inaugural class, Zaytuna opened its doors in the midst of a whirlwind of vicious and searing ethnocentric criticism sweeping America concerning Islam.
The uproar over the proposed Islamic cultural center near ground zero in New York, the chaos and polarization that came from the burning of the Quran in Florida earlier this month, the controversy I recently wrote about at Brooklyn College stemming from requiring incoming freshmen to read a supposedly biased text about the experience of Arab Americans—Zaytuna College is being born in an anti-Islamic storm.
There shall be many rainbows of knowledge that beautify our country after this current storm of ignorance passes. One, I think, could be Zaytuna, which means “olive tree” in Arabic.
“I think Zaytuna College over time can help contribute to a healthier understanding of Islam by removing ignorance,” said co-founder Zaid Shakir, according to the Associated Press. The college is set to “prepare morally committed human beings that can go out and make a difference in the world as Muslims.”
Any institution of higher learning that snatches ignorance out of our minds—whether that ignorance is religious, economic, sexual, gendered, racial, or scientific—any institution that invigorates morally and intellectually excellent human beings is a rainbow of knowledge in my portrait of the world. It does not matter whether the school is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Santeria, or Voodoo. Every religion has a body of knowledge and a moral compass that can direct us to higher moral and intellectual ground.
But of course here in the United States, the land of religious freedom, there are critics of Zaytuna College. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank, says the school is seeking to indoctrinate students and spread Islam in America, according to the Associated Press.
