President's Report 2019

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Looking Back to Look Ahead Pre side nt ’s R eport 2019

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Zaytuna College aims to educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders who are grounded in both the Islamic and Western scholarly traditions and conversant with the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.

I n the Na m e of G od , the Be nef icent, the M ercif ul

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Looking Back to Look Ahead

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Presiden t ’s Report 2 0 19 N con te n t s Reflecting on the Past 6 Contemplating the Present 24 Envisioning the Future 48

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The greatest, truest, and only permanent good bestowed upon humanity is that of sound knowledge. From such knowledge, all other goods flow, even faith.

And this is why, at Zaytuna College, we have adorned our seal with the prayer Wa qul Rabbī zidnī ‘ilman (“And say, O Lord, increase me in knowledge”).

For it is our knowledge of the world alone that enables us to discern a creator; hence, true knowledge will always lead to true faith. The greatest Qur’anic commandment is “Know that there is no god but the One True God.” It is knowledge alone—and most importantly, knowledge of God— that differentiates us from beasts, making us unique among God’s glorious creation. th e q u r’a n i c q u otat ion is f r om su ra h ţā h ā , v e r s e 114.

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Letter from the President P Dea r F ri en d s an d S upport e r s : Salam alaykum. I want to thank all of you for your immense show of support over the years.

Together, with the grace of God, we’ve arrived at Zaytuna College’s ten-year anniversary, which surely seemed inconceivable when this College first became a fledgling reality.

This first decade of the College and the early years of Zaytuna Institute going back to the 1990s have been an eventful journey of incredible growth and miraculous blessings, even as we navigated many trials and challenges along the way. Through it all, the commitment and perseverance of our pioneering students, our broadly trained faculty, and our dedicated staff— along with you, our steadfast supporters—to planting Muslim scholarship and education in the West have been unwavering.

The extraordinary milestones we’ve reached in the past ten years reflect a steady pattern of growth and maturity that gives us sincere hope that Zaytuna College will one day fulfill its bold ambition: to be a leading liberal arts college in the United States and contribute profoundly to the commonweal by helping restore the necessary symbiosis between reason and revelation that is so starkly missing in the modern world.

These milestones include a continuous refinement of our distinctive bachelor’s degree curriculum; the addition two years ago of the master’s degree, focusing on Islamic texts; the swift accreditation of both the BA and MA programs; the acquisition of prized properties in Berkeley; and the amazing success stories of our graduates, who are thriving in their studies and accomplishments in the fields of law, medicine, philosophy, and religious vocations.

Meanwhile, we have launched many publicfacing initiatives that, God willing, will begin to reflect the beauty and the knowledge of

our faith and to influence the public discourse about religion in the West. Our beautiful bookstore offers curated books and carefully selected artwork and gifts; our scholarly and literary publication, Renovatio, helps lead interfaith conversations among scholars and the reading public; the Emir-Stein Center corrects misperceptions about Islam through a series of short animated videos, which have already received nearly two million views; the Center for Ethical Living and Learning has successfully built a new permaculture garden and orchard on campus; and our faculty give talks and seminars to share their knowledge in Muslim communities across the nation.

We look forward to the next decade with ambitious projects and plans: a PhD program in Islamic texts and civilization, the doubling of our student body, a beautification and renovation of our new upper campus that we hope will make it a landmark destination, increased public engagement within the academic landscape and in the broader society, and a move toward a more sustainable financial footing through building an endowment and diversifying our revenue.

I hope you are excited about continuing your support for this historic College. With your help, and with the grace of God, we can inspire our global Muslim community by building an exemplary institution that restores the intelligence and integrity of our faith and shows the world what excellence looks like.

Yours faithfully,

H amza Yusuf P r e si d e nt

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Pervez Qureshi Chairman, board of trustees “It’s an incredible testament to the American Muslim community that it has built and supported Zaytuna College with its prayers and its financial gifts and brought Zaytuna to the tenth-year anniversary of its establishment as a Muslim college. Ten years seems long, but it’s a drop in the bucket for the life of a college.

Zaytuna is a long-term affair. In the coming decades, we will, in sha Allah, have hundreds of graduates making their impact in various fields of endeavor; only then will we witness their real contribution to the broader American society.”

Marianne Farina Member, board of trustees “Congratulations to the students, faculty, administration, board of trustees, and donors of Zaytuna College as you celebrate your tenth anniversary. With its research and teaching, Zaytuna exemplifies the rich, centuries-old intellectual tradition of Islam. This tradition has contributed to its own educational and spiritual resources as well as those of the world’s religions. Zaytuna College is an invaluable partner to the academy, faith communities, and society in promoting depth of learning, critical appropriation, and trustworthy dissemination of knowledge.”

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Zaid Shakir Cofounder and faculty member “As supporters, you’re building a world-class college, and I want you to never lose sight of that. Your children can go to Harvard or Yale or Columbia, and every second they’re in that institution, you fear for their faith. You don’t know if they’re going to come home with their degree in their hand but their faith out of their heart. Zaytuna College provides a quality education that sends young adults to Harvard or into the world as graduates of Zaytuna. It nurtures their faith and nurtures their Muslim identity as it shapes them into young scholars and productive, proud citizens of this country and citizens of this world.”

Hatem Bazian Cofounder and faculty member “For Zaytuna, making an academic address for Islam in America is no longer a theory—it’s a practice. Many of our students have gone to graduate programs across the country, attaining degrees in philosophy, in Islamic studies, in medicine, in law, and in other areas. Moreover, other educational institutions prize our students in terms of their Arabic, in terms of their Islamic studies, and in terms of their studies in logic and philosophy.”

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Reflecting on the Past

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SHAYKH ABDALLAH BIN BAYYAH (LEFT) AND SHAYKH KHATRI BIN BAYBA (RIGHT) WERE AMONG THE SCHOLARS WHO TAUGHT DURING THE EARLY YEARS AT THE HAYWARD SCHOOLHOUSE.

A Journey of Gratitude founded Zaytuna Institute. Arguably, however, it began two years earlier, on December 1, 1994, when a college-aged Feraidoon Mojadedi heard Shaykh Hamza speak eloquently at a local university about the religion of Islam. Moved by the presentation, he invited the young scholar to teach at a small rented storefront in Hayward, California, that he and his friends had fashioned into a communal space and a modest Qur’an school for children. With little means, they made curtains out of bulk fabric and borrowed money to acquire a chalkboard for the new teacher.

The first lessons Shaykh Hamza chose to teach were, appropriately, on submission (islām), faith (imān), and beauty (iĥsān). He taught many texts from the Muslim tradition but also led discussions about significant Western texts and contemporary topics. Shaykh Hamza’s focus on teaching texts from both the Islamic and Western traditions

I n t h e mid 1990s, an educational venture rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area began to coalesce around Hamza Yusuf, an American Muslim teacher and preacher who had returned to the United States some years prior, after about a decade spent studying the classical Islamic sciences. During that time, Shaykh Hamza made his home in other lands—Spain, Mauritania, Morocco, Abu Dhabi, and the United Kingdom, among them—as the student of a number of learned Muslim scholars, including many who were living masters of their subjects, such as the Mauritanians Shaykh Murabit al-Hajj and Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah.

After his return to California, Shaykh Hamza devoted himself to continuing his education and transmitting the knowledge he had acquired. In 1996, he, along with Liliana Trujillo Hanson and Dr. Hesham Alalusi, formalized this venture and

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The Early Years As the schoolhouse grew, Zaytuna Institute organized its first conference, Remembering the Feraidoon mojadedi and sHaykH Hamza yusuF in tHe mid-1990s Days of Allah, in 1999. The event featured notable American Muslim speakers, including Dr. Umar was to become the signature characteristic that later infused Zaytuna College’s curriculum with a Faruq Abd-Allah; Shaykh Muhammad Shareef; deeper study of both traditions and their canoni- and Imam Zaid Shakir, who had first met Shaykh Hamza at a gathering in Detroit in 1991. On the cal texts. day of the conference, magnanimous souls—two Zaytuna, the name of the fledgling organization, was derived from the Arabic word for olives, of the most generous were older women—gave large donations, without solicitation. With those zaytūnah, evoking, through the curing of olives, funds and the generous patronage of Hesham the spiritual metaphor of a maturing heart. The Alalusi, a local Iraqi-American businessman and olive tree, considered blessed by all three Abraphilanthropist, Zaytuna acquired a property on hamic faiths, has an extraordinary root system, Jackson Street in Hayward that was lovingly enabling it to draw water from deep within the beautified by the community growing around the earth and produce olives for hundreds of years. nascent institute.

This represented the hope and the aspiration That modest property rapidly became a hub for for Zaytuna itself—that its tree of knowledge, drawing from the roots of the Islamic intellectual education and community building, with students taking classes in the traditional Islamic sciences on tradition, would, by the grace of God, provide fruit and shade for future generations of yearning evenings and weekends. In the early 2000s, this community of learning began to thrive in the Bay students.

Shortly after coining the name, Shaykh Hamza Area. With the audiovisual talent and devotion of Haroon Sellars, whom Shaykh Hamza had approached Abdallateef Whiteman, an English Muslim who had trained as an architect but made his living in Granada, Spain, as a typographer and graphic designer, to design a logo for Zaytu-na Institute. Whiteman, who has since served as the primary designer for all Zaytuna materials, designed the distinctive green logo, with an olive tree situated front and center, a rendering of the minaret of the Kutubiyya Mosque in Morocco rising behind it, and a crescent moon. The logo established Zaytuna’s aesthetic, which embodies the spirit of Plato’s sentiment that “beauty is the splendor of truth.”

Hesham Alalusi with Shaykh Abdur Rahman Tahir

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Qari Amar Bellaha with students enrolled in the Qur’an school

its aftermath pulled Shaykh Hamza away from daily teaching—and away from his family for extended periods—as it became obvious that Muslims were in dire need of knowledgeable and articulate voices who could help the broader public understand normative Islam so they could see the extremist ideologies of al-Qaeda (and later, ISIS) as aberrations. The void created at Zaytuna

by Shaykh Hamza’s travels was soon filled by the arrival of Imam Zaid Shakir from New Haven, Connecticut, who took the lead in Zaytuna’s educational mission. Various ancillary projects continued to develop during these early years, including a Qur’an school led by Qari Amar Bellaha; an independent bookstore and production company; a prison outreach program; a publications department for books, translations, and the Seasons journal (managed by Uzma Husaini); a distance learning program; the Contemporary Lecture Series, and Muslim outreach (da‘wah).

In 2004, the growing Institute, with an eye toward launching a formal program of study, recruited six students for a four-year educational experience known as the “pilot seminary program.” Imam Zaid taught all the classes—including physical education—and continued to be the primary teacher, but soon brought in Abdur

recruited from the East Coast, Zaytuna began to expand its educational reach to Muslims across the nation and abroad. Talks and classes were broadcast live to multiple communities of students, who eagerly congregated in front of monitors in distant places. Many Muslims around the United States had already begun to purchase cassettes and CDs of Shaykh Hamza’s talks and excitedly share their discoveries with friends and family. Distinguished Muslim scholars—several of them teachers of Shaykh Hamza—visited Zaytuna and taught seminars and classes; among them were Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Shaykh Khatri bin Bayba, and Shaykh Abdullah bin Ahmedna from Mauritania, and Shaykh Tawfiq al-Bouti and Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi from Syria.

Zaytuna Institute began to develop a curriculum for English-speaking Muslims, centered on texts recognized as authoritative by the consensus of Sunni scholars. These included al-Ājūrrūmiyyah for Arabic, Al-Akhđarī for praxis/fiqh, Al-Shifā for prophetic biography, and other texts covering the breadth of the traditional sciences. With this focus, the seeds for a canon of the foundational texts of the Islamic tradition had begun to germinate.

The seismic events of September 11, 2001, and

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Imam Zaid Shakir teaching a class at Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California

Rahman Tahir, the late Somalian scholar and minister who had graduated from al-Azhar in Egypt; Yahya Rhodus, who had studied in Mauritania briefly and in Yemen for several years; and Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, a Philadelphia native with a degree in Islamic law from al-Qarawiyyin University in Morocco.

infrastructural groundwork of the college. The three cofounders of what would become Zaytuna College concluded that, instead of a seminary curriculum, it was more important to teach a curriculum that combined traditional Islamic textual studies with the foundational literature of the West.

This study of the two traditions, which can be traced back to the classes taught by Shaykh Hamza at the little schoolhouse in the mid 1990s, was formalized in the mission statement they drafted, which called for Zaytuna College to “educate and prepare morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders

Birth of a College In 2007, Zaytuna Institute relocated from the beloved Hayward property, toward which the local community felt a strong sense of loyalty and ownership, to be near Berkeley, a center of intellectual and cultural life in the United States.

By the time the pilot seminary program held its graduation ceremony in 2008, Zaytuna had begun to shift its educational focus from community education and seminary learning to building a Muslim college that could take its rightful place within the nation’s academic landscape.

During this period, Dr. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-American lecturer at the University of California (UC) Berkeley who taught courses related to Islam and who was also a well-known Bay Area social justice advocate, joined Shaykh Hamza and Imam Zaid to help chart Zaytuna’s vision and lay the administrative, legal, and

Abdullah bin Hamid Ali teaching in Berkeley during the last year of the pilot seminary program

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Imam Zaid Shakir addressing a volunteer group at Zaytuna’s office space in downtown Berkeley in 2008

The Inaugural Class

who are grounded in both the Islamic and Western scholarly traditions and conversant with the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.” The initial four-year curriculum, in addition to covering the Islamic sciences, covered areas of general education, including English and communication, mathematical concepts and quantitative reasoning, arts and humanities, physical and biological sciences, and civic engagement.

Prior to the launch of the college, Zaytuna introduced its first college-level academic program, the Summer Arabic Intensive. This eightweek residential language program was held at the Westminster House in Berkeley. In each of the first two summers (2008 and 2009), as many as eighty students—from across the nation and from overseas—arrived in Berkeley to study Arabic.

Early instructors included Imam Dawood Yasin, who would later become Zaytuna’s director of student life, and Yusuf Mullick, a future faculty member at the College. The program would eventually provide Zaytuna’s incoming freshmen with the required grounding in Arabic prior to their first semester.

Launching a college was a monumental task for the young staff of Zaytuna Institute, so in 2009, a dozen Bay Area professionals from different fields—law, academia, marketing, technology, and the corporate sector—were enlisted in a yearlong volunteer effort as a management committee to oversee preparations for the launch. The committee, cochaired by Pervez Qureshi (who later chaired Zaytuna’s board of trustees) and Diane Stair, worked closely with the cofounders and staff to officially incorporate Zaytuna College that November, with Hamza Yusuf as president, and begin planning to recruit its first freshman class. The College recruited fifteen undergraduate students for its inaugural freshman cohort.

A convocation on August 23, 2010, welcomed the first freshman cohort of Zaytuna College.

Their classes were to be held in rented space at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, near the UC Berkeley campus. Invited dignitaries to the convocation included Gray Henry-Blakemore of Fons Vitae Publishing, who read “The Meeting Place,” by Martin Lings, and Dr. James Donahue,

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The faculty of Zaytuna College’s inaugural semester in 2010: (left to right) Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, Dr. Hatem Bazian, President Hamza Yusuf, Dr. Shirin Maskatia, Imam Tahir Anwar, and Imam Zaid Shakir

with President Hamza Yusuf, Dr. Mirza helped revise Zaytuna’s educational philosophy and gave the curriculum a more intentionally liberal arts shape. They drafted revised language to describe Zaytuna’s academic philosophy, which incorporated Malaysian philosopher Sayyid Naquib al-Attas’s concept of adab (humaneness) in education. They also developed a more precise understanding of the liberal arts, gleaned from the writings of Mark van Doren, and led a facultywide reading group to cogitate on key texts in the Western tradition of liberal education. Two years later, in 2013, Zaytuna welcomed Dr. Colleen

then-president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, who delivered a stirring talk on the ethical commitments and responsibilities that Zaytuna must necessarily carry. “Zaytuna is a special kind of academic institution—one that serves the head as well as the heart, faith as well as reason, tradition as well as culture,” he said.

Besides the three founders, other faculty members for Zaytuna’s first academic semester included Abdullah bin Hamid Ali; Imam Tahir Anwar, a local religious leader traditionally trained in India; and Dr. Shirin Maskatia, who held a PhD in English from Cornell University. A year later, at Zaytuna’s second convocation, the American Muslim scholar Dr. Sherman Jackson gave the keynote remarks at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley and focused on the importance of bringing the Islamic tradition into conversation with the contemporary world.

Soon after, Zaytuna brought on board Dr. Mahan Mirza, a scholar of Islamic studies from the University of Notre Dame, to lead the academic side. Working closely

Dawood Yasin teaching at the Summer Arabic Intensive prior to the launch of the college

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The first Zaytuna College campus property on Le Conte Avenue in Berkeley

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Keyes as vice president of academic affairs. With her significant experience in administration, she proved instrumental in professionalizing Zaytuna’s academic administrative structure and policies.

Meanwhile, Zaytuna’s rented campus had been lively and bursting with embryonic potential, but it could not fully accommodate a growing student body and regular events that welcomed the community. By providence, a stunning redbrick building, the last commission of renowned California architect Walter Ratcliff, Jr., built in 1939 in the Tudor-Gothic style, became available for purchase in 2011. Formerly the home of the University Christian Church and the site for the Pacific School of Religion’s prestigious Earl Lectures, the building sits on Le Conte Avenue, atop Holy Hill (so called because of the many theological schools in the neighborhood).

An aggressive yet auspicious brick-by-brick fundraising campaign galvanized the generous American Muslim community and helped raise the multi-million dollar purchase price in an incredibly short time, providing a new home for Zaytuna College. Following in the footsteps of the great centers of learning in the Muslim world, Zaytuna’s new blessed campus, once a sanctuary of Christian worship, reinvigorated with the spirit of Muslim practice, stood as a delight to the eyes and heart.

The property acquisition was also the fruition of an idea planted many years earlier in the minds of President Yusuf and Dr. Bazian by Sr. Marianne Farina, a professor at the neighboring Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, during a conversation at Zaytuna Institute’s Jackson Street property. Holy Hill, Sr. Marianne told them both, sorely needs an Islamic institution of higher education. She urged Zaytuna to move there. At the time, her suggestion of a prime location such as Berkeley seemed unimaginable for the humble community-based organization. Now, since history has unfolded, President Yusuf sometimes jokes that he would be the first to testify to witnessing a miracle by Sr. Marianne—still a steadfast supporter and advocate of Zaytuna, who serves on the College’s board of trustees—should she ever

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Waheed Rasheed

be considered for beatification by the Catholic Church.

During this critical period, Zaytuna also benefited from the operational leadership of Omar Nawaz and Waheed Rasheed, and later Catherine Hamze, especially in the areas of administration, fundraising, property acquisition, and finance.

An Era of Expansion In late 2013, an opportunity for expansion presented itself to Zaytuna in the form of another landmark building on Euclid Avenue, just steps from the Le Conte Avenue campus. This beautiful addition met many essential needs of the growing college: a dormitory for male students, space for public events and classes, and offices for administrators and faculty members. Home to the Franciscan School of Theology, the building was offered to Zaytuna because the Franciscans were sincerely pleased that the new owners would be part of the Abrahamic family of faiths. In fact, the property previously served as a Jewish fraternity house. Zaytuna completed the Abrahamic cycle by taking ownership of the property in early 2014.

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Zaytuna acquired its second property in Berkeley from the Franciscan School of Theology.

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Zaytuna College introduced the College seal at its first commencement ceremony, a milestone event, at the Berkeley Community Theater, on the Berkeley High School campus, on May 17, 2014. More than one thousand community members attended in person and thousands more joined from across the globe through the video livestream. Two of the world’s foremost Muslim scholars—Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, a worldclass jurist known as a scholar’s scholar, and Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a polymath philosopher and prolific writer—delivered keynote addresses, bestowing an incredible honor on Zaytuna.

In his remarks, delivered in Arabic, Shaykh Abdallah described the zaytūnah tree as a tree that grows in difficult climates: “It can grow in the shade, it can grow in the sand, it can grow in extreme climates, and it can grow in moderate climates. It has qualities that you don’t find in other trees. We’re told that it has benefits of both the East and the West. It’s a middle type of tree. My hope is that Zaytuna College is really a place with a human foundation, where all people can be shaded by that tree, this intellectual tree of Zaytuna, which is not limited to the East or the West.”

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That same year, the College leadership launched a project to create a College seal, again working with Abdallateef Whiteman, the Englishman in Granada who designed the Zaytuna logo. The end result was a seal that elevated a conventional collegiate seal through Qur’anic symbolism. The Zaytuna olive tree connotes life, knowledge, and light, and the supplication of the Qur’an (“And say, my Lord increase me in knowledge”) establishes revelation as the source of wisdom and the pursuit of knowledge as an inherent good.

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The inaugural commencement took place on May 17, 2014. Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah (top left) and Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (top right) delivered the keynote addresses, while graduating senior Faatimah Knight (above) gave the student address.

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WASC official announcing Zaytuna’s accreditation at a major event in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the founders on stage

power of the liberal arts to rescue a civilization and culture in crisis. He lamented that most colleges had largely abandoned the essence of the liberal arts. “‘What will you do with that degree?’ The question is invariably asked of every young person majoring in the liberal arts, as if the purpose of college was solely a utilitarian one,” he said. “Once again, the philosophical roots of the crisis reveal themselves. But liberal arts is not a luxury, it is an absolute necessity for a complex society with complex problems.”

Zaytuna’s curriculum, always developing, reached a more refined form under the leadership of Dr. Mark Delp, a Catholic philosopher

Dr. Nasr, meanwhile, emphasized the significance of building Zaytuna College because the community needs “people who are Islamic in their identity and who understand the West.”

This, he said, is “absolutely necessary to cultivate, especially by people coming from a place like Zaytuna College, which is destined by the hands of God, I believe, to play a very important role.”

While Zaytuna matured academically and consolidated its campus on Holy Hill, the College continued to pursue its goal of becoming an accredited college, a monumental undertaking.

Ultimately, Zaytuna College earned accreditation in an unusually short period of time from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), which accredits institutions in Western states, including Zaytuna’s neighbors, such as Stanford University and UC Berkeley. In granting accreditation to Zaytuna on March 4, 2015, the WASC commission commended Zaytuna for several achievements, including the creation of “a rigorous and high-quality learning experience, one that… can be viewed as an exemplar in the liberal arts tradition.”

In an address delivered on the occasion of the official announcement of accreditation, on March 7, 2015, President Hamza Yusuf emphasized the

Dr. Mark Delp teaching logic

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The Zaytuna Bookstore, which opened in 2016, offers books curated by the Zaytuna faculty and carefully selected artwork and gifts.

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ZAYTUNA’S NEW UNDERGRADUATE CAMPUS IS BUILT IN A CALIFORNIAN ANDALUSIAN MOORISH STYLE.

and logician who had joined Zaytuna’s growing faculty to teach traditional logic some years prior.

During his tenure as dean of faculty from 2016 to 2019, he helped ensure philosophical rigor and the centrality of the trivium in the curriculum. As a student of Latin scholasticism, he also emphasized the importance of the lecture in Zaytuna’s pedagogy. “Indeed, we believe that a single brilliant lecture can do more to teach the skills of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) than any amount of reading can,” he wrote in a foundational essay about liberal arts at Zaytuna, published in 2017. “Moreover, since we study primary texts in their original languages, our lecturers are compelled, almost by a kind of intellectual law of gravity, to keep close to the firm ground of the text.... In this light, lectures are rightly understood as living commentaries, and the students who follow them as collaborators in the ancient art of scholarship.”

The College Flourishes In 2016, with the College firmly established, fortified by an unprecedented faculty with training in both traditional Islamic institutions and Western universities, Zaytuna College began to develop auxiliary programs that were public engagement initiatives aimed at promoting religious literacy among Muslims and people of all other faiths and perspectives. The Zaytuna bookstore opened on the Le Conte campus, with texts, literary collections, and artwork carefully selected

by Zaytuna’s faculty and exemplifying the College’s unique blend of the best of the Western and Eastern classical traditions.

Also in 2016, Zaytuna launched Renovatio, an ambitious multimedia publication that quickly developed a reputation across the nation’s academic landscape as a forum for scholars, theologians, and writers to examine timeless questions

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and today’s moral challenges by drawing from the enduring texts of revelatory faith traditions.

The project holds public events with its authors, produces videos and podcasts, and publishes two print editions each year.

Other auxiliary programs include the Zaytuna Center for Ethical Living and Learning, dedicated to promoting sustainability through the lens of the Islamic tradition, as well as Zaytuna in Your Community, an educational outreach effort that promotes literacy in the Islamic and Western intellectual traditions by collaborating with communities around the country interested in hosting members of Zaytuna’s faculty for talks and weekend classes on topics related to religious life and contemporary challenges.

In the fall of 2017, Zaytuna was presented with another incredible opportunity: an offer to purchase the longtime home of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, a sprawling and beautiful campus on the highest point of Holy Hill in Berkeley. For five years, President Yusuf had engaged in serious discussions with a major philanthropist for a large gift, which miraculously arrived on the blessed day of ¢Arafah and allowed Zaytuna to acquire the multimilliondollar property. This bucolic ten-acre property houses the undergraduate program and also hosts retreats and programs for youths during the summer, expanding the Zaytuna campus to well beyond what was initially imagined.

On the academic side, nearing the end of its first decade as the only Muslim liberal arts college in the nation, Zaytuna turned its focus to developing a graduate program. An undergraduate education could give students a good grounding in our traditions, but it was clearly just the first step on the path of scholarship. A master’s degree program became the next logical step, and Zaytuna launched its MA in Islamic texts in 2018.

The program is led by Shaykh Mahsuk Yamac, a Kurdish scholar of philosophy and theology, and Dr. Jawad Qureshi, a specialist in kalam theology and traditional spirituality and psychology. It provides students with a higher level of access to the Islamic tradition through a guided course of study in Islam’s primary sources. With concentra-

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tions in Islamic law and Islamic philosophy and theology, the program offers students the opportunity to study the Islamic trivium (al¢ulūm al-āliyyah) in its primary texts and to develop the requisite skills of advanced academic writing and analysis. The program prepares students for careers as scholars or as professionals in a variety of fields, including law and education.

In 2019, Zaytuna introduced Dr. Omar Qureshi as provost. Dr. Qureshi, who trained extensively in the Islamic sciences in Syria and also holds a PhD in cultural and educational policy from Loyola University in Chicago, brings a steady administrative hand to Zaytuna, along with a deep commitment to liberal education in the Islamic and Western traditions. The introduction of the Canon Lecture Series, an ongoing series of talks by Zaytuna faculty on the canonical books they teach, was one of his first initiatives.

Toward the Future By the grace of God, ten years after its launch as a college in Berkeley, California, and twenty-three years after its humble beginnings as a storefront educational venture in nearby Hayward, Zaytuna College continues its maturation process for both its educational mission and its physical campuses.

Its successes, as both a uniquely American and uniquely Islamic institution, are the fruits of the prayers and financial support of American Muslims, the vision and the intellectual muscle of its founders and faculty, the trust and commitment of its students and their parents, and the tireless efforts and contributions of the many unnamed but not forgotten administrative leaders and staff members who provided the crucial operational support for the core mission of the educational programs. Our hope and aspiration, God willing, is that the College will continue to increase the number of students, add a postgraduate degree program, enhance and beautify the campus properties so they become a renowned destination for visitors worldwide, and continue to educate and prepare future generations of “morally committed professional, intellectual, and spiritual leaders” to serve and provide benefit for the prosperity of the broader society.

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I n d e e d, to G od we b elong an d to Him w e s hall return.

(Qur’an 2: 156)

Dr. Sulayman Nyang (1944-2018) G r e at s c h o l a r s , i n t e l l e c t ua l s , leaders, saints, and sages traverse our history, but on rare occasions, we find luminaries who embody all these qualities leaving a legacy of preeminence. Dr. Sulayman Nyang is one such preeminent soul. Born in the Republic of The Gambia in West Africa, Dr. Nyang served as a public intellectual, academic, diplomat, author, community leader, and mentor for more than forty years of his life. He was professor emeritus at Howard University, where he was the chairman of the African Studies Department. His publications include eleven books and more than seventy essays and articles that span a wide range of genres, including religion, politics, and sociology. Dr. Nyang served as the deputy ambassador of The Gambia in Saudi Arabia and advisor to several notable national and international organizations, such as the United Nations, World Bank, NAACP , Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and Muslims in the American Public Square Project. He also contributed to the award-winning P BS documentaries Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet and Prince Among Slaves as an advising scholar. His acclaimed reputation and scholarship led him to be one of the most sought-after American Muslim speakers, delivering keynote addresses at White House events, international conferences, prominent universities and colleges, and various charitable and service-oriented foundations. Dr. Nyang was the recipient of the Alexander Russell Webb Award in 2 0 0 7 from Zaytuna Institute. The award honors those individuals who help to promote a better understanding of Islam and Muslims to the greater American society. Dr. Nyang loved Zaytuna and its core mission and spoke at many events, including fundraisers, the Summer Arabic Intensive, and the Zaytuna convocation. The world is indebted to this extraordinary man of God, a towering figure who was loved by all who knew him. May he be elevated to the highest of ranks in paradise, and may his family continue to benefit from the fruits of his incredible efforts.

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Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah and President Hamza Yusuf at the Alliance of Virtue

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on ethical issues. On June 28, President Yusuf presented a paper entitled “Indigenous Peoples: An Islamic Perspective” at the conference, held at Vatican City.

In the talk, he focused on the foundational human narratives in the Qur’an and the idea that God has created “nations and tribes” so we can “know one another” to emphasize that modern nation-states and indigenous and aboriginal tribes have something to learn from each other and that each has its gifts and challenges.

E t h i c s a n d Rel igiou s Lib ert y C o m m issio n Zaytuna was invited to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) for its annual twoday conference in our nation’s capital. President Hamza Yusuf represented Zaytuna College and the greater American Muslim community in sessions and workshops that discussed religious freedom and public policy.

Wo r ld Eco n o mic For u m

A lli anc e of V i rtue : T he Washi ng ton D e c lar ati on

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, invited President Yusuf to join in conversations with other faith leaders and intellectuals to discuss key topics in religion and ethics.

Zaytuna College was one of the few religious higher education institutions represented at the forum.

The Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies held its first Washington, D.C., conference on the Alliance of Virtue. The gathering had more than four hundred faith leaders, academics, politicians, and activists, and they highlighted the importance of mutual understanding and support for the sake of the common good.

The program culminated with a Washington Declaration that clearly outlined the religious imperative for the Alliance of Virtue, as endorsed by the Prophet Muĥammad s centuries ago.

P r e s i den t Ha mza Yu su f at t he Vat i can Ethics in Action is an ambitious project of the United Nations, the Vatican, and Religions for Peace, whereby religious leaders and ethicists meet to discuss religious and secular perspectives

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Garry Wills giving the Commencement Address, 2018

Faculty from Zaytuna were part of the steering committee and participated in some of the main sessions and workshops.

future goals of the College and its pivotal role, God willing, in America’s educational landscape.

U n i v e rsity o f Da l las

Zaytuna College hosted Dr. Eva Brann, Dr. Emily Langston, and David McDonald, teachers and administrators from both the Annapolis and Santa Fe campuses of St. John’s College.

S t. J ohn’ s C olle g e V i si ts Z ay tuna

The University of Dallas invited President Yusuf to give an address on Islam’s liberal arts tradition at a symposium entitled Liberal Education Among the Abrahamic Religions.

The president, provost, dean, and senior faculty members of the University, along with a large audience of students and community members, attended the lecture and panel discussion. President Yusuf met with the president of the University of Dallas and discussed areas of collaboration.

The papers are being prepared for publication by the University.

F ac ulty R e tr e at The faculty retreat held at the beginning of May produced some excellent results. At the top of the agenda of issues discussed was the need to identify the evergreen books for the core curriculum for study at Zaytuna. The importance of deepening the knowledge of faculty members regarding Zaytuna’s methodological approach, which is studying all subjects through the lens of the trivium, was emphasized. A commitment was made to have faculty workshops toward that end.

Z ay t u n a Fun dra is er Zaytuna had a successful fundraiser in Portland, Oregon, where hundreds of community members showed their support and enthusiasm for the College. Dr. Hatem, Imam Zaid, and Imam Dawood spoke at the event, sharing the remarkable milestones Zaytuna has achieved since its inception, Alĥamdulillāh. They also discussed the

C omme nc e me nt 2018 Zaytuna’s fifth commencement was held on May 13, 2018. Thirteen graduates received their bachelor of arts degrees. Hundreds of people attended the graduation, including faculty,

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ZAYTUNA FACULTY MEMBER FARAZ KHAN TEACHING AT THE RIHLA

students’ family members, local community members, visitors from throughout the country as well as abroad, former alumni, and prominent religious leaders. The program was watched by thousands online through livestream as well.

Zaytuna was fortunate to have Pulitzer Prizewinning author, historian Dr. Garry Wills, who is one of the preeminent public intellectuals in the United States, give the commencement speech.

Dr. Wills has written nearly forty books, the most recent being What the Qur’an Meant and Why It Matters. Dr. Wills has also been a contributor and major supporter of our journal, Renovatio.

In his talk, Dr. Wills reminded the graduates that they are part of a greater project to increase the understanding of the role Islam should play in American life in order to fulfill the First Amendment’s pledge of religious freedom.

PERMACULTURE INSTRUCTOR RHAMIS KENT

P er m aculture Desi gn Cou rse The newly established Zaytuna Center for Ethical Living and Learning, spearheaded by Imam Zaid Shakir, Dr. Hatem Bazian, and Imam Dawood Yasin, hosted the Permaculture Design Course during the last week of May. Permaculture is a system of developing agricultural ecosystems that are intended to be sustainable

and self-sufficient, by using design principles found in nature.

The course was taught by Rhamis Kent, codirector of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia and the United States. Students who participated in the course received certification in permaculture design.

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ZAYTUNA COFOUNDERS AT A TELETHON FUNDRAISER ON THE ZAYTUNA CAMPUS

thon, a multi-departmental effort that followed the format of a traditional telethon, with a unique Zaytuna twist.

The telethon was hosted by Muslim comedian Preacher Moss and featured Dr. Bazian, Imam Zaid, President Yusuf, a few College faculty, guest appearances from Bay Area community leaders Hosai Mojaddidi and Dr. Mohamad Rajabally, performances by poet Baraka Blue and hip-hop artist Brother Ali, and a surprise video message from renowned comedian Hasan Minhaj.

C i t y o f Berkel ey Host s IFTAR F or the first time, the City of Berkeley and Zaytuna College together hosted an iftar during Ramadan. Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin and Councilmember Cheryl Davila attended the iftar. Dr. Bazian, Imam Zaid, and President Yusuf spoke about Zaytuna and Ramadan at the event.

The Berkeley residents in attendance were extremely welcoming and expressed their appreciation for the event and Zaytuna College’s presence in Berkeley.

The iftar was held at the North Berkeley Senior Center on May 30 and was attended by people of various faith backgrounds.

R i hla S umme r P r og r am at Z ay tuna As part of our efforts to continue expanding our community outreach, in July of 2018, Zaytuna hosted the Deen Intensive Foundation’s Rihla Summer Program, a three-week long retreat led

by Zaytuna board member Dr. Aisha Subhani.

More than 150 students from all over the world were selected for the program after a rigorous application process.

The program offered students an intensive schedule of courses, including the foundations of faith—an understanding of essential Muslim creed (‘aqīdah), sacred law (fiqh), and the founda-

R am a da n Ca mpa ign and Telethon The marketing team held a robust and multi-faceted Ramadan campaign, which featured a direct-mail campaign, an email campaign experimenting with a new digital newsletter design, and a new micro site designed to give visitors an opportunity to learn more about the College and reasons to support it.

One new and exciting feature of the Ramadan campaign was the first Zaytuna Ramadan tele-

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tions of spiritual excellence (iĥsān).

More than ten classically trained teachers taught specialized courses, including some members of Zaytuna’s faculty, such as President Yusuf, Dr. Ali Ataie, Shaykh Faraz Khan, and Dr. Omar Qureshi. Students expressed their excitement about the new campus and the progress Zaytuna College has made. Many made commitments to spread the word and support the College.

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B ay lor’ s H onor s C olle g e I nv i te s Z ay tuna In October, President Yusuf visited Baylor University’s Honors College as a special guest of Dean Thomas Hibbs, distinguished professor of ethics and culture. President Yusuf was invited alongside Dr. Robert George of Princeton University for a conversation on The Challenge of Secularism, as a part of an endowed lecture series on faith, ethics, and public policy.

President Yusuf met with the Honors College advanced students and core faculty members, including the director of their Great Books Program. Dean Hibbs hopes to visit Zaytuna’s new campus soon to further discuss possible areas of collaboration between the two schools.

M a s t e r’ s Pro gra m Convocati on Zaytuna welcomed its inaugural master’s program class with a convocation held on August 26. President Yusuf and faculty members welcomed the graduate students and reminded them of the intellectually rigorous yet, God willing, fruitful endeavor ahead of them.

T he F utur e of Wor k President Yusuf joined the penultimate Ethics in Action meeting held in the Vatican in October and focused on The Future of Work. Prominent religious leaders, philosophers, economists, and other global influencers presented papers on this most timely and crucial subject. President Yusuf presented a paper entitled “The End of Work as We Know It: A Muslim Perspective.” Discussions about modern technology and its effect on labor and industry culminated in a collective final report and statement by the participants in hopes of affecting positive change to this important global crisis.

Z ay tuna i n S i ng ap or e

PRESIDENT HAMZA YUSUF WITH PRESIDENT PETER KANELOS OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE

President Yusuf, on behalf of Zaytuna College, was invited to speak at the international conference of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) on the theme Future of Faith: Religious Values in a Plural World. President Yusuf presented a paper on the topic of Islam’s universal values for humanity, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, President Halimah Yacob, and other scholars and governmental officials in the audience.

P r e s i den t Yusuf Vi si ts St . John’s C o l lege In September, President Yusuf was invited by President Peter Kanelos of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, for a special visit that included meetings with the president, dean, and core faculty, and observation of the freshman seminar, led by Dr. Eva Brann. The St. John’s team engaged President Yusuf in discussions about curriculum, with special emphasis on Zaytuna’s unique pedagogy. They hope to further the relationship between the two colleges so that teaching resources and curriculum development can be shared.

T e mp le ton Awar d s P r og r am The John Templeton Foundation awarded the coveted Templeton Prize to King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at the grand Wash-

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PRESIDENT HAMZA YUSUF AT THE TEMPLETON PRIZE CEREMONY, WITH (LEFT TO RIGHT), UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTTERES; KING ABDULLAH II; AND HEATHER TEMPLETON DILL, PRESIDENT OF THE JOHN TEMPLETON FOUNDATION

education association of more than 180 Christian institutions from around the world. President Yusuf was invited to speak at the plenary session, entitled Let’s Talk About Faith: Contributions and Misunderstandings. The panel included presidents from other religious educational institutions, such as Houghton College, Yeshiva University, Regis University, and Brigham-Young University.

ington National Cathedral, which was filled with ambassadors and other dignitaries, including the secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Gutteres. President Hamza Yusuf was invited to speak on the importance and significance of King Abdullah’s efforts in seeking religious harmony.

He pointed out that King Abdullah, in launching “A Common Word Between Us and You,” an open letter from Muslim leaders to leaders of the Christian faith, was reminding fellow Muslims that they are members of the Abrahamic family and that the Qur’an commands us to respect the other family members, to protect them when threatened, and to honor them when safe.

Z ay tuna’ s TEN - YEA r A nni v e r sary Gala On February 17, Zaytuna celebrated its ten-year anniversary gala with staff, faculty, students, and friends and supporters. With more than 600 people in attendance, the program highlighted the extraordinary milestones the young college achieved in just the span of a decade. The evening was one of gratitude for the endless blessings of God, which included the many loyal supporters who have stood by the College from its inception.

Attendees enjoyed an inspiring keynote address by notable American Muslim scholar and leader Dr. Sherman Jackson, who emphasized the value

2019 Z ay t u n a at CCCU Confer encE Zaytuna was invited to participate in the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) Presidents Conference. The CCCU is a higher

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PRESIDENT HAMZA YUSUF WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS LEADERS AT A CONFERENCE ORGANIZED BY THE COUNCIL OF CHRISTIAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

speakers and panelists who shared thoughtful insights from the Islamic tradition, scientific reasoning, and experiential wisdom that gave participants much to ponder. Many of the panelists represented prominent universities and colleges, including UC Berkeley, University of Florida, Skidmore College, and Harvard University.

of Zaytuna as a project and institution of critical importance for future generations.

A n I s l a mic Ca se f or Plu ralism Zaytuna cosponsored a conference entitled An Islamic Case for Pluralism, Equal Citizenship, and Religious Freedom, with Pepperdine University, the Religious Freedom Institute, and other faith-based institutions. The program was held at the Pepperdine University School of Law and included speakers such as President Yusuf, Dr. Sherman Jackson, Dr. Kent Hill, and Dr. Daniel Philpott.

A ssoc i ati on of C or e T e xts and C lassi c s In April, President Hamza Yusuf attended the twenty-fifth annual Association of Core Texts and Classics (ACTC) conference held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The ACTC is a professional association that aims to improve liberal education through the use of core texts and world classics.

The annual conference heralds educators, college administrators and leaders, students, and other supporters of the liberal arts from around the world. The conference planning committee and chair requested President Yusuf to deliver the keynote address at the opening evening plenary session on the pedagogy and educational philosophy of Zaytuna College.

h al al - Tayyib Co n fer ence The Zaytuna College Center for Ethical Living and Learning hosted its inaugural academic conference on March 8 and 9, 2019. The conference set out to broaden the conversation within the American Muslim community with regard to ĥalāl and ţayyib, and how these two concepts, in particular, inform the ethics of food production and consumption in the industrial world.

The conference was well attended, with notable

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DR. SHERMAN JACKSON AT THE TEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY DINNER FOR ZAYTUNA COLLEGE IN 2019

A PANEL DISCUSSION AT A CONFERENCE ON HALAL AND TAYYIB IN MARCH 2019

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IMAM ZAID SHAKIR AND SHAYKH HAMZA YUSUF AT THE LAW SCHOOL GRADUATION FOR ZAYTUNA ALUMNUS REEMA LATEEF

addressed the greater Iliff University community with two lectures at St. John’s Cathedral. The first was entitled Hijacking Islam: Living in a Post-9/11 World. The second lecture focused on the commonalities of the Abrahamic family of faiths: Abraham’s Children: Jews, Christians, and Muslims: What We Share and How We Differ. His stay in Denver included a weekend course at Iliff University entitled Truth, Goodness, and Beauty: The Transcendentals of Islam, which was part of a semester-long online course led by President Yusuf.

I H e art Ha l a l Zaytuna College participated in this year’s I Heart Halal exhibition and conference from April 12 through 14 in Chicago’s iconic Navy Pier.

Co-sponsored by the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), this spectacular event showcased halal products and initiatives from around the world. Zaytuna displayed its own unique products and bestselling books at the exhibition. Imam Zaid Shakir opened the event with the Friday sermon and prayer, while President Hamza Yusuf joined Adnan Durrani, chief halal officer of Saffron Roads in a panel discussion entitled How Halal Raises the Bar for Better for You Foods. The session was moderated by Steve Bynum, senior producer of Worldview, WBEZ.

Z ay tuna’ s F i r st L aw S c hool Gr ad uate On May 11, Imam Zaid Shakir and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf joined 2016 Zaytuna graduate Reema Lateef and her wonderful family as she graduated from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, a top-tier law school in the United States. Reema is the first law school graduate from Zaytuna College. She was awarded the prestigious Rickert Award for her excellence in service.

I l i f f Sch o o l o f Theology From April 22 through 28, President Yusuf visited Denver, Colorado, as the 2019 Everding Lecturer of the Iliff School of Theology. President Yusuf

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N ew P r ovost N ame d for the C olle g e When Zaytuna College needed to find a new dean of faculty due to the retirement of Mark Delp, it quickly chose Omar Qureshi, who was recommended by Mark Delp and approved by President Hamza Yusuf and Zaytuna’s board of trustees.

Omar Qureshi, who came to Zaytuna College two years ago, has an excellent background that includes both traditional training in Islamic sciences and Western academic scholarship. He served for seven years as principal and dean of academics at a parochial school in the Chicago area, and has a PhD in cultural and educational policy from Loyola University. His dissertation was on the identity of religious educational institutions in the United States. Given the increasing administrative needs of the college, it was determined that Dr. Qureshi should be named Provost of the College where he will be managing academics as well as key operational components. At Zaytuna, he has taught courses on metaphysical foundations, contemporary Muslim thought, principles

O u r F irst Distin gu i shed Pr ofessor E m er i tus Mark Delp, who retired as dean of faculty last summer, was honored with the title of distinguished professor emeritus at Zaytuna’s 2019 commencement. He continues to serve as advisor —and contributor—to Renovatio and has agreed to return to Zaytuna for short seminars and workshops with our students. He received the honor for infusing his sincere commitment to the liberal arts into all aspects of Zaytuna’s academic program and for his depth of knowledge in philosophy and logic, which will shape the college for years to come. In announcing his retirement, President Hamza Yusuf wrote to the College community: “We will miss Dr. Delp’s grace and gentle demeanor, and we are forever grateful to God for the time He granted us to learn and benefit from Dr. Delp’s knowledge, wisdom, and expertise.”

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of Islamic jurisprudence, and al-Ghazāli. He has said that his priorities as provost will include the science of dialectics and disputation (ādāb al-baĥth wa al-munāżarah), which provides the methodology used in all Islamic sciences. All faculty members will go through formal training in dialectics and disputation. “This will ensure, God willing,” he said, “that this method becomes part of [Zaytuna’s] signature pedagogy.”

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O ffi c e of I nsti tuti onal E ffe c ti v e ne ss The Office of Institutional Effectiveness (formerly the Office of Institutional Research) entered the spring quarter with glad tidings from our regional accreditor, who approved the College’s first graduate program, representing the achievement of an institutional goal set years ago.

Alongside the MA program review, the College continued to prepare for its first reaffirmation review, which is centered around a self-study report that was submitted in December 2018. As College staff and board members reviewed their protocols and gathered relevant files, the director of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Sumaira Akhtar, prepared her year-long peer evaluation of another local college. The corresponding site visit will occur in October 2019 on campus.

Zaytuna is a member of the greater higher education community and is now also a contributor to the peer evaluation process. Akhtar, also our accreditation liaison officer, was invited by WASC to review a local graduate institute for their reaffirmation. Consequently, we have gained more insights into the evaluation methods, and more institutions are gaining exposure to Zaytuna.

I n c o min g Fresh man Class “Look s P r o m i sin g” Twenty-five students, including some from overseas, received offers of admission from Zaytuna, and the group is quite impressive, says Fr. Francisco Nahoe, former director of admissions at Zaytuna. It included students who would qualify for admission to top-tier colleges and universities in the United States and some students who already had degrees from renowned universities but still wanted to pursue an undergraduate degree from Zaytuna.

“I’m phenomenally impressed with the diversity of the candidates—ethnic, social, educational, regional,” says Fr. Francisco. “The only thing they have in common is that they’re all Muslims.” Fr. Francisco, who is a Roman Catholic priest and Franciscan friar and teaches grammar and rhetoric at Zaytuna, says a significant majority of the twenty-five candidates enrolled for the fall semester. A new director of admissions, Faisal Hamid, has recently been hired to resume the excellent work done by Fr. Francisco, who continues as an integral member of Zaytuna’s faculty.

Ac ad e mi c S upp ort C e nte r The Academic Support Center (ASC) is directed by Dr. Cindy Ausec and includes the Writing Center, led by Dr. Ausec; the Ĥifż (Qur’an Memorization) Center, led by Qari Amar Bellaha; the Tajwīd (Orthoepy) Center, led by Uzma Husaini; and the Arabic Center, led by Dr. Fadi Elhin.

“I fell in love with math, science, and all knowledge.”

Before attending Zaytuna College, I was seeking my PhD in math at Syracuse University. Despite my research talents, I was unable to identify the metaphysical and philosophical implications behind math’s methods and conclusions. I looked back at history’s renowned mathematicians; without exception, they were polymaths who joined math with philosophy, theology, medicine, and other fields. By attending Zaytuna College, I fell in love with math, science, and all knowledge.

A hme d S oui d , C lass of 2019 First-Year Student, SUNY Upstate Medical University

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DR. CINDY AUSEC DIRECTS THE ACADEMIC SUPPORT CENTER FOR STUDENTS

In the fall, the ASC administered grammar, vocabulary, ĥifż, and tajwīd diagnostic exams to incoming freshmen. Additionally, in conjunction with the Trivium Seminar in Grammar, the ASC conducted a mid-semester writing assessment drawn from the syllabus of the same class.

The Writing Center also offered workshops addressing study skills, note taking, research skills, time management, and how to write an argument, which were attended by the freshman class. The ASC also began a series of grammar and vocabulary workshops, and its writing tutors remained busy assisting students with writing papers, providing one-on-one grammar tutoring support.

Z ay tuna C olle g e’ s P r e me d T r ac k Zaytuna offers its students a premed track that enables them to study our traditional liberal arts curriculum with its emphasis on Islamic law and theology, providing them with a well-rounded devotional liberal education. Zaytuna College has an agreement with the UC Berkeley system, one of the finest public institutions in the United States, that enables premed students at Zaytuna to augment their Zaytuna courses with the necessary science prerequisites next door at UC Berkeley.

Zaytuna has now had premed students who were able to compete this program and receive

“The study of nature and medicine cannot be divorced from metaphysics.”

Zaytuna College made me cognizant of the fact that the study of nature and medicine cannot be divorced from metaphysics. Science and medicine are not to be relegated to a separate, secular realm divorced from one’s religious beliefs. Rather, science must proceed from the conclusions that Islam makes regarding the nature of the universe.

Alĥamdulillāh, I scored in the 97th percentile on the MCAT.

N i da A hme d , C lass of 2019 First-Year Student, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

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MASTER CALLIGRAPHER HAJI NOOR DEEN CONDUCTING A WORKSHOP AT ZAYTUNA

admission into several accredited medical schools within the United States, thus showing us that a devoted student is quite capable of achieving this.

It is our belief that such a student will have a great advantage at medical school, and evidence shows that liberal arts students not only get higher scores on the MCAT exam than other students but excel in their studies at medical schools and in their careers due to the creative advantage they are provided with a liberal arts education.

Two of our seniors who graduated this year— Ahmed Souid and Nida Ahmed (see pages 36 and 37)—completed the premed track at Zaytuna College, and both were accepted to fine medical schools.

top of Holy Hill in Berkeley, formerly the home of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, our facilities team has been upgrading and customizing it for classrooms and faculty offices, the women’s dormitory accommodations, and retreat space for Muslim organizations. The BA program is now entirely at the new campus, along with the female student dormitory. Zaytuna’s facilities team, under the guidance and direction of Catherine Hamze, Zaytuna’s former head of operations, has made improvements and renovations to the buildings on campus as well as beautifying the grounds with greenery and landscaping work.

Operations

After nearly five years of diligence, dedication, and hard work, Catherine Hamze decided late spring to resign from her role as head of operations and to begin a new phase in her life. Her presence has been sincerely missed, and the entire Zaytuna community wishes her and her family

N ew H e ad of Op e r ati ons

T h e N ew Ca mpus: A Welcomi ng Place f o r S tudy a n d Reflect i on Ever since Zaytuna College acquired the bucolic and sprawling ten-acre upper campus at the very

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JAVIER ALVAREZ MORAN, OF THE ZAYTUNA FACILITIES TEAM, AT WORK ON A RENOVATION PROJECT, AS A COLLEAGUE LOOKS ON

Media, by Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan.

In September, the bookstore hosted worldrenowned master calligrapher Haji Noor Deen, who conducted a workshop and presentation. The bookstore launched its first art exhibit, featuring Haji Noor Deen’s scrolls, in the lobby of the lower campus at Le Conte Avenue. The bookstore also introduced a new line of special products, including handmade Sandala jewelry from Egypt, created by Maison Lashin, and finely crafted prayer beads from Basmallah Beads.

great blessings and success in her future endeavors. During the summer, the College was fortunate to hire Bay Area local Naima Jameson, who has been working for more than twenty years as a public service professional in local government.

Zaytuna is looking forward to her leadership and talents in furthering our efforts toward establishing an institution of both academic and operational excellence.

B o o k s to re Attract s Read ers Led by Khadija Annette O’Connell, the Zaytuna College bookstore launched a recurring book club with Imam Zaid Shakir and Imam Dawood Yasin. In September, the book club hosted Arlie Hochschild, author of Strangers in Their Own Land. The book club discussed Fire in the Lake, by Francis Fitzgerald, in October, and Servants of Allah, by Sylvianne Diouf, in November. The spring 2019 semester included discussions on The Coddling of the American Mind, by Dr. Greg Lukianoff and Dr. Jonathan Haidt, and Antisocial

F ac i li ti e s In addition to regular preventive maintenance, the facilities team responded to numerous requests from staff, faculty, and students for a variety of reasons, including setting up for multiple events.

At the lower campus, shelves were installed in the basement for the temporary storage of donated books. The team assembled new furniture and assisted with the move and setup of Z-CELL and the Renovatio staff in the Euclid building. On the

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Zaytuna In Your Community

second floor, keypads were installed on all door entrances and new furniture was assembled, including beds, cabinets, and bookshelves. The team also held a class for students interested in learning how to stain wooden bookshelves.

At the upper campus, the team completed all of the sewer lateral work for up to eight sewers, completed a campus-wide area cleanup, and maintained the area with general landscape and grounds work. The team also installed a sprinkler system, turf, and pavement by the auditorium, and resealed its roof. In addition, they installed stairs and a drainage system by the Overlook entrance to campus.

In preparation for the new academic year in the fall, the team prepared the Bin Bayyah/Alalusi halls by conducting a deep cleaning of windows and carpets and helped set up the classrooms and dormitories for students. At Sophia Hall, the team painted the second floor to prepare for its conversion to offices and a guest suite, while at Founders’ Hall, the team installed the access control system and remodeled the bathroom.

Z aytuna V i si ts Communi ti e s Ac r oss A me r i c a One of the primary ways Muslim communities across America learn about Zaytuna College is the College’s Zaytuna In Your Community (ZIYC) program, which organizes events featuring the college’s faculty in cities across the nation.

This year, ZIYC hosted programs in Chicago, Seattle, Charlotte, and Phoenix, with more to come, God willing. Speakers have included Imam Zaid Shakir, cofounder and senior faculty member; Dr. Omar Qureshi, Zaytuna’s provost; and full-time faculty members Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali and Dr. Ali Ataie. Imam Zaid Shakir completed a two-day seminar on marriage in Chicago and Seattle, with hundreds of community members in attendance, while Abdullah bin Hamid Ali traveled to Charlotte and discussed the challenges that contemporary discourse about gender pose to our community.

Dr. Omar Qureshi visited Phoenix to teach Imam al-Ghazāli’s Book of Knowledge, and Dr. Ali Ataie

IMAM ZAID SHAKIR SPOKE ON THE TOPIC OF "EMPOWERED ACTIVISM" AT THE MOHAMMED WEBB FOUNDATION IN CHICAGO.

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RENOVATIO HELD AN EVENT ENTITLED READING ARISTOTLE IN ISLAMABAD, WITH (FROM LEFT) OLUDAMINI OGUNNAIKE, ZAID SHAKIR, FRANCISCO NAHOE, AND MODERATOR SAFIR AHMED.

lectured on The Crucifixion in the Qur’an in Chicago.

variegated—issue to date. Dr. Reuven Firestone, a rabbi and scholar at Hebrew Union College, contributes an essay on why Jews choose to secure, not spread, their faith. The award-winning social historian Dr. Sylviane Diouf traces the emotional and musical style of the blues to the Islamic belt of West Africa. Dr. Sophia Vasalou, a scholar of Muslim philosophy and theology, explores our sense of wonder and whether religious traditions can help us see what is most mysterious in what is most ordinary. The issue also includes new work

by Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Dr. Roger Scruton and an essay by Zaytuna’s own Hamza Yusuf.

In the spring, Renovatio organized a public conversation about the legacy of colonialism in today’s educational system, featuring Imam Zaid Shakir and Fr. Francisco Nahoe of Zaytuna and Dr. Oludamini Ogunnaike, then of the College of William and Mary. The publication also released a podcast entitled Conversing with a National Treasure: Wisdom and Wit with Dr. Eva Brann that featured an enlightening and lively conversation between Hamza Yusuf and Eva Brann. In 2018, Renovatio published two issues with themes: “The Art of Being Human” and “The Enigma of Language.”

Renovatio Renovatio Wel co mes Scholars of Many F ai t h s Why don’t Jews proselytize? How has Islam influenced the American blues tradition? How does the experience of wonder animate our spiritual lives? The spring 2019 issue of Renovatio, published in May, is the fifth— and the publication’s most

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Im¥m N‰r Al-DÏn Al-ߥb‰nÏ’s Al-Bid¥yah fÏ u|‰l Al-DÏn anyone interested in Islamic theology owes a debt of gratitude to Faraz Khan for this translation of a significant text from the Māturīdī tradition. Nūr al-Dīn al-Śābūnī summarizes concisely yet acutely what he takes to be the main principles of correct Islamic theology and its alternatives and provides a lively account of the main principles of Māturīdīsm. Al-Śābūnī is particularly strong on epistemology, and anyone seeking to understand the range of the Māturīdī school of thought will find this translation very helpful.” oliver leaman, University of Kentucky “This text in Māturīdī theology displays the sophistication of Islamic theology at this time, with fair-minded summaries together with a masterful use of philosophical strategies [elucidating] the position of the “people of truth” (Sunni orthodoxy). Faraz Khan’s lucid translation conveys the clarity with which the author presents numerous positions of the Māturīdī school along with concise yet thorough discussions of reasoning characteristic of other theological schools, both inside and outside Islam.” david burrell, University of Notre Dame Faraz A. Khan is on the faculty at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California. His research interests center on the engagement of philosophical theology and ethics with the contemporary age.

This book is part of the Zaytuna Curriculum Series, which seeks to help reestablish the primacy of both reason and revelation in Islam’s legacy of scholarship, and also to cultivate a welcoming and curious intellectual climate, by publishing texts from the Islamic and Western traditions that reflect their richness.

$22.95 ISBN 978-0-9855659-8-5

52295

eef Whiteman 9 780985 565985

zaytuna

a prolegomenon to islamic theology

a prolegomenon to islamic theolog y

curriculum series

a prolegomenon to islamic theolog y Im¥m N‰r Al-DÏn Al-ߥb‰nÏ’s Al-Bid¥yah fÏ u|‰l Al-DÏn

$22.95 usa $30.45 c anada £17.45 uk

t r a n s l at i o n , n o t e s , a n d a p p e n d i c e s b y fa r a z a . k h a n

Publications

The Center for Ethical Living and Learning

N ew Additio n s to the Zaytu na College C u r r i cul um Series

“A P lac e of Wor shi p , R e fle c ti on, and C onte mp lati on”

Zaytuna’s Department of Publications released The Art of Persuasion: Aristotle’s Rhetoric for Everybody, written by Dr. Scott F. Crider, as part of the Zaytuna Curriculum Series. The text offers a simple, clear introduction to the art of rhetoric and explains the nature and parts of the art to readers who may not yet be ready to read Aristotle’s treatise itself. In his introduction to the book, President Hamza Yusuf writes that he hopes the work inspires readers to preserve “something precious from the best of our neglected past.”

Author and Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges says the book “resurrects, when we need it most, the importance of the mastery of rhetoric which, along with grammar and logic, is the foundation of civil discourse in a democracy.”

Later, Zaytuna plans to publish A Prolegomenon to Islamic Theology, translated and annotated by faculty member Faraz A. Khan. The Prolegomenon is an intermediate text in Māturīdī theology, and Khan’s extensive commentary provides a unique window in English into the Sunni theological tradition.

The Center for Ethical Living and Learning has been busy of late with the launch of a new plan on the grounds of the upper campus: the Zaytuna permaculture garden and orchard. Guided by the vision of President Hamza Yusuf and Imam Dawood Yasin, drawing on experts in the field of permaculture and organic landscaping, supported through the generosity of the Islamic Food and Nutritional Council of America (IFANCA), work began this spring with the planting of shrubs and fruit trees. Plans call for an orchard of thirty-five trees, a raised bed area, and two large “living walls.” Says Imam Dawood Yasin, “God willing, the space will create food for our community and serve as an outdoor learning facility as well as a place of worship, reflection, and companionship.”

Earlier this spring, the Center hosted its inaugural academic conference, which set out to broaden the conversation within the American Muslim community with regard to halal and

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ARCHERY CLASS AT ZAYTUNA’S UPPER CAMPS

ţayyib, and how these two concepts, in particular, inform the ethics of food production and consumption in the industrial world. Speakers included Dr. Ingrid Mattson of Huron University College; Mokhtar Alkhanshali, founder and CEO of Port of Mokha; and Adnan Durrani, CEO of American Halal Company / Saffron Roads.

life, highlighted by the congregational prayer, spiritual lessons from Imam Zaid Shakir, monthly gatherings to complete readings of the Qur’an, and night prayers on religiously significant occasions.

The Sunnah sports program allowed students to gain competency in three required sports (archery, horseback riding, and swimming) and one optional sport (wrestling) through training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. A number of students excelled in these sports, with archers earning the ability to train others, and wrestlers medaling in local competitions.

Zaytuna also continued its service partnership with Islamic Relief: student volunteers traveled to Houston, Texas, during spring break to help rebuild areas still confronting the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. In another ongoing partnership, the Suĥbah program, Zaytuna students were paired with high schoolers from a private school in San Francisco in a collaboration that provided experiential knowledge about Islam and Muslims to the high schoolers.

Student Life B u i ldin g a Co mmu nity of Lear ning and D evo tio n Each year, as new students arrive and old friends depart, Zaytuna’s student body begins the task of building community anew. This year, communal dining, which was offered on campus three evenings per week, gave students the opportunity to strengthen bonds between cohorts and to engage faculty members. Guest speakers—who spoke on topics from classical Persian poetry to nutrition—also attended student gatherings. The students also benefited from a vibrant devotional

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Zaytuna College Financial Review T h e co l l ege e xperienced solid financial growth in fiscal year 2018 (FY18) with positive results extending to FY19. FY18 marked an important period during which the full spectrum of the new campus maintenance and renovation expenses was realized. Additionally, the college secured premier residential properties in the Berkeley area for faculty housing.With the launch of the MA program, college operational expenses have risen to meet the new administrative demands.

Record Support from Donors The college continues to thrive with the overwhelming generosity of its donors. FY18 – FY19, in particular, have witnessed record support with highly successful Year-end and Ramadan campaigns. The Office of Advancement, with key efforts by Jamal Barakat, has refocused national fundraising strategies by establishing presidential regional cabinets, which empower regional donors to engage their respective communities and networks to learn, understand, and eventually support Zaytuna’s mission. Regional cabinets have been established in the Bay Area, Southern California, Chicago area, Houston, and DC - VA- MD , with, God willing, more on the horizon. The Zaytuna In Your Community (ZIYC) initiative will be working extensively with the Office of Advancement to ensure that local community ZIYC programs encourage participants to support the College through organic growth, based on increasing familiarity with Zaytuna and its mission.

Donation Trends, F Y15−f y19 $3.17M $3.02M

$1,862,338.00 $1,862,338.00 $1,862,338.00 $1,862,338.00 $1,862,338.00 $1,742,152.00 $1,742,152.00 $1,742,152.00 $1,742,152.00 $1,742,152.00

$2.54M

$1,640,864.00 $1,640,864.00 $1,640,864.00 $1,640,864.00 $1,640,864.00

$2.22M $1,411,457.00 $1,411,457.00 $1,411,457.00 $1,411,457.00 $1,411,457.00

$1,365,182.00 $1,365,182.00 $1,365,182.00 $1,365,182.00 $1,365,182.00

$1.97M $1.86 $1.74 $1.64

0$981,829.00

$981,829.00$981,829.00 $981,829.00

$1.41

$1.37

$840,406.00 $840,406.00 $840,406.00$840,406.00 $840,406.00 $811,733.00$811,733.00 $811,733.00$811,733.00 $811,733.00

2,728

2,728 2,455

2,455 1,815 1,316

1,815 1,624 1,316

1,624 1,316

2,617 2,455

2,728

2,617 2,455

1,624

2,728 2,617 2,617 2,466 2,466

2,728

$0.70

$0.69

1,815 1,624 1,316

2,455

2,617 2,466 2,466 2,251 2,251

$0.65

1,624

$1.00 2,466 $0.84 2,251

2,251 2,251 Total $ ReceivedTotal $ Received Total $ Received Total $ Received Total $ Received Ramadan campaign Num. of DonorsNum. of Donors Num. of Donors Num. of Donors Num. of Donors 12,000 Strong

1,316

Year-end Campaign Numbers in millions

2015FY14 2016FY15 2018 FY12 FY14 FY13 FY13 FY15 FY14 FY14 FY16 FY15 FY17 FY16 FY17 FY16 FY18 FY17 FY17 FY19 FY18 FY13 FY12 FY13 FY12 FY14 FY13 FY15 FY16 FY15 FY17 FY16 FY182017 FY19 FY18

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Reoccurring Reoccurring Giving Trends GivingReoccurring Trends Giving Trends Reoccurring Giving Trends Reoccurring Giving Trends

Donation Trends FY15 19

FY19 FY18

FY19

2019 FY19

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ZIYC Progr ams by Region (August 2018― present) 2 4

1 7

1

2

10 4

2

The recurring donor program, known as the 12000 Strong Program, has remained an important part of the college’s regular monthly income. The growth of the program has plateaued over the last three years, and the FY19-FY20 goals will include a major overhaul of the program management, marketing/outreach, and member communication.

Focused events and College publications/productions will be developed exclusively for the monthly donors. By FY22, the College hopes to have approximately 50% of its monthly expenditures covered by this recurring donor program, God willing.

Recurring giving trends

$1,862,338.00 $1,742,152.00 $1,640,864.00

$1,411,457.00

$1,365,182.00

$981,829.00 $840,406.00

$811,733.00

2,728 2,455

2,617

2,466 2,251 Total $ Received

1,815

1,624

Num. of Donors

1,316

FY12

FY13

FY14

FY15

FY16

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FY18

FY19

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The endowment of Zaytuna College has been carefully managed by the finance committee, a committee under the board of trustees. Current property assets of the College are approximately $30 million, with the endowment at just over $2 million. The main investment arm for the endowment is AMANA Mutual Funds.

The current endowment rate of return is approximately 2.55% since the start of the mutual fund investment. With the development of presidential regional cabinets, an aggressive endowment campaign will be initiated to increase the endowment fund to $10 million by FY21, God willing.

Endowment Asset Distribution, by Sector Misc.

11.1% Technology 5.7%

Asset Distribution

by Sector

Mutual Funds 83.2%

Operational Expense Review The overall expenses of the college have steadily risen each year, corresponding to the rapid growth of the college in terms of academic programs (BA and MA), campus expansion, residential property acquisitions, and auxiliary program developments. The key goal for the long-term sustainability of the college is to maintain a steady rise in undergraduate and graduate students and to cap off administrative expenditures, lowering the total cost per student to less than $100,000/year. The Office of Advancement will also work with long-standing donors to establish scholarship funds, planned giving opportunities, and other philanthropic initiatives to diversify and expand both the donor and donation fields.

Yearly Expense Review, f y18−F Y20 Auxiliaries 6% Publications 6%

Academics 35%

Auxiliaries 9%

Auxiliaries 11% Admin/Finance 22% FY18 Total Operating Budget: $8,864,759

FY19 Total Operating Budget: $8,384,927

Marketing 10%

Advancement 21%

Admin/Finance 26%

Publications 6%

Academics 38%

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Marketing 5% Advancement 14%

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Publications 4%

Academics 40%

Admin/Finance 25% FY20 Total Operating Budget: $9,466,581

Marketing 5% Advancement 17%

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College Directory, 2019–2020 Board of Trustees

Pervez Qureshi, Chairman Dilshad Dhanani Marianne Farina Masood Khan Suhail Obaji Mubasher Rana Syed Mubeen Saifullah, Secretary Aisha Subhani

Administration

president’s office

Hamza Yusuf, President Aisha Subhani, Executive Assistant to the President Op e r a t i o n s

Naima Jameson, Director of Operations Jacobus Botha, Manager of Facilities and Security Pepy Prawira, Human Resources Manager Khadija Annette O’Connell, Interior Design/Bookstore Manager Iman Hamze, Events Manager Maria Alvarez Moran, Custodian Javier Alvarez Moran, Facilities Maintenance Technician Luis Alvarez, Maintenance/On-Site Events Jerry Jiminez, Maintenance Worker Syed Tahir Shah, Campus Safety and Security Officer Eric Dykes, Bookstore Assistant Miguel Ramirez, Maintenance Ruben Solario Martinez, Landscaping A d va n c e m e n t

Ghaith Saggaf, Director of Advancement, Operations and Systems Jamal Mohammad Barakat, Senior Director of Advancement, Development Colleen Jansen, Senior Director of Regional Advancement Manal Alfaouri, Donor Relations Associate Souad Bouali, Donor Relations Associate Finance

Aadhil Shiraz, Associate Accountant Fida Yassine, Accounting Assistant Sadaf Khwaja, Financial Consultant Manivone Burgess, Accounting Consultant M a r k e t i ng a nd P u b l i c at i o ns

Safir Ahmed, Director of Publications and Marketing Najeeb Hasan, Managing Editor Uzma Fatima Husaini, Senior Editor Aaron Sellars, Audio Visual Manager Carol Nisar, Editorial Projects Manager Na’im Beyah, Audiovisual Specialist Faatimah Knight, Community Editor Ian Abdallateef Whiteman, Designer

and Learning

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Envisioning the Future

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From the Tools of Learning to the Acquisition of Knowledge The Zaytuna PhD

Th e a mbitio us and animati ng idea behind Zaytuna College has been to help restore the centrality of knowledge—which has always been the hallmark of the Islamic tradition—to our religion. A rigorous four-year PhD program, we believe, is essential to making that a reality in the modern age.

With an MA program in Islamic texts now in its second year, we plan to introduce a PhD in Islamic texts and civilization that can produce future scholars who possess deep grounding in two traditions (the Islamic and the Western) and who have the potential to make meaningful and lasting contributions to reviving Muslim scholarship and education in the West. Graduates of the PhD program would also become stewards of Zaytuna’s ethos for future generations of Muslims.

The course work in the PhD program will include studies of classical Arabic language and literature; Qur’an and Qur’anic commentaries; Islamic philosophy, theology, and mysticism; Islamic law; and the history of Islam. The PhD program includes a systematic course of study, research, and apprenticeship, which are intended to further advance graduate students’ skills in methods of research, scholarly disputation, and writing. The PhD degree will provide students with a specialized level engagement with Islam’s primary sources; they will study the history of these sources, examine how the tradition that emerged from them was lived and practiced, and explore the contemporary articulation of these sources in Muslim societies across the globe.

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Traditional Schooling for the Young The Zaytuna College Curriculum Series Zaytun a Co l lege aspi r es to revive the intellectual legacy of both the Islamic and Western traditions, and one essential element in this ambitious endeavor is the publication of a Curriculum Series, the most recent being a book on the science of rhetoric. The Curriculum Series, however, has a broader scope than publishing advanced academic texts; we aim to address the needs of our youth by developing a complete K-12 classical curriculum series that will introduce them to the great liberal arts tradition common to both Islam and the West.

For centuries, traditional schooling trained children in the classical educational model, starting with the grammar phase and followed by logic and rhetoric. This triad of intellectual development—the trivium—trains young minds to think, write, and speak with both clarity and eloquence. Known as the paideia in the Western tradition and futuwwa in the Muslim tradition, early education cultivates young hearts and minds toward truth, goodness, and beauty.

Zaytuna intends to revive these lost pursuits by developing a comprehensive educational program for children through adulthood. Led by a team of scholars, educators, editors, and researchers, the curriculum will include core subjects by grade level with uniquely designed texts, work books, study guides, teacher’s guides, and appropriate testing material. Teaching videos will be included, where appropriate, to train both students and teachers on the various subject matters.

By the grace of God, the initial ground work and research for this project has already begun.We see this as an urgent and important initiative as the future of our intellectual legacy rests with our most precious gifts: our children.

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A College in a Garden Transforming Zaytuna’s Campus into a Place of Beauty and Serenity

GENERALIFE GARDENS IN ALHAMBRA, GRANADA

Th e Gen era life gard ens adjacent to the Alhambra Palace in Granada remind us that gardens can enhance, uplift, and pacify the most overwrought soul. The eye is assailed at every turn with the colors of every flower, shrub, and tree imaginable—all in an ordered fashion—while pools filled with carp and goldfish are surrounded by intriguing summer terraces and trickling fountains. Muslims devoted to beauty inspired these gardens in Spain—so why not in Berkeley, California?

Zaytuna College’s new upper campus, as it turns out, represents a rich example of Californian Andalusian Moorish style architecture. But elevating the large mansion that crowns the campus into a place of learning that captivates the imaginations of not just Zaytuna’s students and faculty but an umma is no easy task. Inspired by principles of Islamic architecture and garden design, we hope to create tranquil enclosed outdoor spaces connected to campus buildings, for undistracted study and reflection.

It’s a formula that never fails. The great seats of learning—like the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the great mosque of Karouian in Tunisia, the Qarawiyyin mosque in Fes—were built round enclosed courtyards with water fountains and pools. Zaytuna will also make water a strong feature of its design, and by careful landscaping, unify the nine campus buildings, using purposeful plantings, trees, and pathways. Echoing an Andalusian garden, cedar hedges and cypress trees will grace a labyrinth of green spaces, adorned perhaps with a covered gazebo, and cobalt blue and white zillīj fountains.

Zaytuna’s campus will embrace these features, God willing, and transform it into a college in a garden.

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ZAYTUNA’S UPPER CAMPUS (ABOVE AND BELOW) WILL EMBRACE THE FEATURES PRESENT IN THE GARDENS OF ALHAMBRA, GOD WILLING

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Investing in Public Engagement Renovatio and the Emir-Stein Center

I n today’ s publ ic discourse, religion is noticeably sidelined as a private concern. However, all faith traditions contain profound teachings that can enrich the commonweal. Founded three years ago, Renovatio—published by Zaytuna College—has already become an admired forum for notable writers and scholars from varied faith traditions to contribute meaningfully to contemporary challenges and to questions of universal concern. In the coming years, we plan to invest, with support from philanthropic foundations and from our community, in a digital strategy that produces high-quality articles, essays, videos, and podcasts and that can reach a broad audience.

We aim to promote interfaith conversations among scholars, and to begin to influence the public discourse about Islam and about all religious traditions. Ultimately, we believe Renovatio will help increase religious literacy among all Americans as it becomes, God willing, a touchstone publication for religious thought.

The Emir-Stein Center seeks to spread peace to counter those who spread war, to educate the ill-informed to counter those who falsify the truth, to instill understanding to counter those who promote ignorance, and to cultivate empathy to counter those who preach indifference to the suffering of others. In doing so, the Center aspires to tell the untold story of Islam and to restore Islam’s historical role as being among the most powerful forces for good in the world.

The Center has already produced a series of short videos aimed at correcting misconceptions about Islam. In the future, the Center’s activities will disseminate knowledge about the teachings and values of normative Islam through a multifaceted public engagement effort that includes producing educational materials, sponsoring interfaith alliances, producing short films and documentaries, and publishing apologetic literature that provides sound answers for the most difficult questions about Islam.

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Ten videos since March 2018, with nearly two million views

Gary Wills, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian

Gar-

Andrew March, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Pastor Bob Roberts, NorthWood Church in East Texas

Sr. Marianne Farina, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology

Joram van Klaveren, former Dutch parliamentarian

Michael Penn, Stanford University

Craig Considine, Rice University

Juan Cole, University of Michigan

Lesley Hazleton, author and psychologist

Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School

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Looking Ahead to a Sustainable Financial Model The Next Five Years endowments, and private gifts from financially successful alumni. As a nascent college, Zaytuna has a small alumni base of five classes of graduates who are still early in their careers or completing graduate study; the College receives almost all its revenue from private donations, including zakat, from the American Muslim community.

With Zaytuna’s annual expenses approaching $10 million and a projected growth of about 7 percent per year, the College plans to move to a revenue model that depends less on private donations and more on building a substantial endowment that could generate returns to invest into the College. This strategy, God willing, will result in moving Zaytuna College toward a sustainable financial footing that allows us to pursue our vision of reviving Muslim scholarship and education in the West and becoming a model of success for the global Muslim community.

I n i t s first deca d e, the most significant revenue-generating successes of Zaytuna College were its capital campaigns. By the grace of God, the College was presented with incredible opportunities to acquire three major campus properties in prized locations in Berkeley—and generous supporters enabled us to acquire approximately $20 million in property acquisitions, including some faculty housing.

Our new strategy builds upon these successes by shifting its successful capital campaigns to endowment campaigns; doubling the number of students, without a significant increase in faculty and administration; and generating funds through foundation grants and separate endowments.

At most colleges in the United States, tuition never covers the full cost of a college education, so they rely on investment returns on

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Zaytuna Graduates Expressions of Gratitude

R as h eeda Pl en ty, Class of 2014 At Zaytuna, I studied Islamic law and theology along with the liberal arts at an introductory level.

Since those were the first years of the College, the curriculum was still very much in flux. We took several classes on the legal foundations of jurisprudence (uśōl) and did not have as much logic as is currently taught. Arabic, though, whether as a language course or as part of other courses because of Arabic texts, was ever present.

My most cherished experience was the daily one of studying and living with the young men and women who were my classmates and observing, interacting, and studying with my teachers. I am indebted to all of them in ways that cannot be measured. In regards to the larger community, one particular memory that comes to mind was of entering the school and seeing the trays of food that were out on the counter in the kitchenette. Someone in the community had prepared food and brought it to feed us while we studied. This happened several times and really made us feel how supportive the local community was of this new enterprise.

After graduating from Zaytuna, I decided to pursue a PhD, and I’m currently attending the Graduate Theological Union, toward that goal.

Zaytuna did not really guide me toward this

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decision; rather it was my previous studies in the arts and my interest in Islam in America, particularly as it manifested among Black Americans, that led me here.

Since I left Zaytuna, I got married, and we were blessed with a baby girl last March. So my current focus is very much on my family.

S ohab e M oj ad d i dy , C lass of 2017 I received a bachelor of arts in Islamic law and theology. Among the many memories, writing my senior thesis was the most memorable experience. It was an intellectual endeavor that represented the culmination of my studies at Zaytuna. The project allowed me to draw from the fundamentals of Islamic metaphysics, theology, and ethics, as well as identify the conceptual continuity that unites these different sciences. The logical rigor and clarity of expression demanded by the College facilitated intellectual growth and a deep passion and appreciation for the liberal arts that will remain with me wherever I go.

After graduation, I decided to pursue graduate studies in philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. I was inspired by the study of classical Islamic texts to pursue further academic training in the respective fields of philosophy and religion. The process has been rewarding and edifying, for both disciplines investigate the totality of human experience, and more specifically, examine the principles and presuppositions upon which all other knowledge rests.

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Mark van Doren once wrote, “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” The inspiring lectures, class discussions, and conversations with Zaytuna’s esteemed faculty assisted in solidifying my intellectual aspirations, which, in broad strokes, consists mainly of using the principles of traditional Islamic thought to answer and engage with questions of contemporary concern and significance.

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topics of advanced Arabic and provided one-onone lessons as well. This experience prepared me academically and professionally for my career passion—teaching Arabic. I graduated in May of 2016 with a bachelor of arts in Islamic law and theology from Zaytuna College.

In order to further pursue my academic and professional goals of teaching Arabic and Islamic studies, I pursued a master of arts degree in Islamic studies and leadership at Bayan Claremont. Alĥamdulillāh, I successfully defended my MA thesis last S i dr a Qa zi, Cl a ss of 2016 year. Upon graduating, I taught Arabic linguistics and Islamic Studies at several Islamic centers/instiMy studies at Zaytuna College made me realize tutions, including Zaytuna College, where I taught that pursuing religion guides the learner in his a course in Arabic rhetoric last December. path of seeking understanding of himself by My future goals include teaching Arabic lintransforming his life in many aspects, and results guistics and Islamic studies at institutions of higher in establishing a deeper connection with not only education and translating classical Arabic works his local community but also the larger multireligious world, and most importantly, with God. into modern English. I intend to revive the knowlWhile I joined Zaytuna College with an advanced edge and values embedded in the Islamic tradition knowledge of the Arabic language and some of the through grasping their relevance to the present Islamic sciences due to my years of study overseas, world, which is a lifelong endeavor.

I was deficient in the disciplines of logic, rhetoric, and grammar. I had the opportunity to study Western scholarly traditions and philosophies at F aati mah K ni g ht, C lass of 2014 Zaytuna. I was able to see how the Islamic and I will forever appreciate Zaytuna for allowing me Western traditions intermix and form a better understanding of the universal principles. During the opportunity to dive into our program, Islamic Law and Theology, from my very first semester. It my time at Zaytuna, I came to realize what and is a noteworthy advantage that is rare for an Amerhow to give back to my community. ican college. The core subjects of the tradition, My most memorable experience at Zaytuna is being assigned the role of Arabic teaching assistant. such as theology, jurisprudence, and Arabic were reinforced each year, with a more advanced level I was given the opportunity to lead sessions on

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to ground us further and expand on our original understanding.

What I say next may sound odd, but rarely a week goes by that I don’t think about my experience at Zaytuna. It came at a truly formative period in my life and certainly shaped how and what I believe, my values, my perspectives, and what I’m able to offer to those around me. Whether I reflect on light or profound moments spent with friends, gems of knowledge from teachers that find their way back to relevance, or moments of concentration and stillness found in nooks throughout campus, I think fondly of Zaytuna.

I knew that I wanted to continue studying religion after I graduated from Zaytuna, and I had a number of options in front of me, but I chose to study at a very established seminary in Chicago in order to round out my knowledge of the study of religion. While there, I built upon my traditional Islamic studies with contemporary studies of Muslims in America and modern approaches to the study of Islam by Muslim academicians. I also delved into Jewish theology as well as biblical studies, and I am made better as a citizen, a peer, and a thinker for having gained more than a cursory knowledge of those traditions.

Since graduating in 2014, I ran a successful interfaith campaign which created a model for numerous other campaigns that followed it. I have had the opportunity to speak to thousands in cities across the country and share how the knowledge I gained at Zaytuna has shaped my life and how it may translate for others as well. I have taught, nurtured through chaplaincy, and continued my own journey of enrichment.

But I would be remiss not to say that, in the last two years, I have started a family and am ardently focused on setting my children up for success. I feel that I am gearing up to enter another phase of life in which I can bring the maturity and perspective I’ve gained to reimagine what Islamic scholarship looks like for me.

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R ozana R ahman, C lass of 2017 I completed my undergrad at Zaytuna in 2017.

During my study, I got greater insight into the Western and Islamic worlds, how they came to be in the state they are in today, and what our role is as Muslims in modern society and as human beings in general.

I am grateful for the treasure chest of golden memories I accrued at Zaytuna. One of them is when one of our teachers was explaining a central concept of theology, and he gave a metaphor of a person repeatedly about to fall off a cliff and at every moment God holding him back—an example of our utter dependence on Him. It was the first time I heard it from this perspective, and I walked out of the building feeling exuberant, looking in wonder down the path we strode down so often.

For a moment, it was as if I stepped into a new world.

After graduation, I took a gap year, and then enrolled in the Zaytuna master’s program. I trusted Zaytuna as a place that could nourish my mind and spirit, so that was a major reason I chose to return.

Zaytuna helped provide answers to some of the fundamental questions I had about life (Who are we? Why are we here? What is this place and why is it how it is?) as well as improve my writing and Arabic language skills. With God’s grace, I now have a strong foundation to build the rest of my life upon. I doubt I would be able to study what I am now pursuing in the master’s degree program without this foundation.

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O m ar Bayra mo gl u, Class of 2016

R e e ma L ate e f, C lass of 2016

At Zaytuna College, I studied the tools of learning, both from a traditional Islamic approach, as well as one from the Western liberal arts. It was an experience that was authentically Islamic within a Western context.

My most memorable experience at Zaytuna College was with the brothers studying until late hours of the night. It was an experience that created a bond between us that still is there more than two years later. We all shared the same hardships in memorizing and understanding and picked each other up when we needed it. We even took turns taking naps.

I decided to attain a chaplaincy certificate at Hartford Seminary. I knew I always wanted to give back to my community. In 2015, I spoke with a good friend of mine, and he told me that people back home are struggling. After a few office hour sessions with Imam Dawood Yasin, I knew that chaplaincy was the route I was to take. It was a chance to take what I learned in Zaytuna College and present it in a practical manner for people.

My experience in Zaytuna College helped me greatly in classes at the Seminary. The foundation I formed at Zaytuna College prepared me for what was to come. When taking classes on other faiths, I had something to work from. I also learned how to study at Zaytuna College. I remember Shaykh Hamza telling us in orientation, “If you don’t know how to study, you will learn here.” It was a lifelong lesson.

While I was at Zaytuna, I majored in Islamic law and theory. We began studying basic theological tenants and the Arabic language, moving on to studying Islamic finance laws and the underpinnings of theologians’ complex theories.

One of the most memorable times at Zaytuna was having round table discussions about philosophical texts. We sat around a table, a question was posed, and everyone would chime in their thoughts.

There were no right or wrong answers—just intellectual debate. With each comment that was made, another layer of complexity was added to the discussion, until we concluded with a host of ideas and thoughts for one chapter of a book.

After graduating from Zaytuna, I decided to pursue law school. Zaytuna’s curriculum taught me how to delve deeper into the meanings of words and sentences, to find the root logic. This is very similar to my courses in law school, where we are reading older and newer case laws, tracking the evolution of a specific legal ideology.

I was constantly pushed at Zaytuna to not just skim the surface of a text. I was taught how to peel the layers of a specific legal thought and get underneath the surface to furnish our understanding. In a way, I was taught the history of the law as much as the law itself. In law school, legal precedent is almost paramount to understanding a current legislative policy or ruling. I am very grateful for the opportunities I have had, all of which have shaped me into the aspiring attorney I am today.

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Our Sincerest Thanks for Your Continued Support By t h e g race of G od, with Zaytuna College’s sixth commencement this year, more than fifty students have received the bachelor of arts degree in Islamic law and theology. These students, due to the continuing generosity of Zaytuna’s supporters, have earned their degrees without incurring debt, giving them enormous freedom to make their mark upon the world, fortified by the gift of knowledge and faith, and untethered by financial burden.

This accomplishment, which rests upon every other achievement by Zaytuna College in its first decade—from the assembly of its stellar faculty to the acquisition of its awe-inspiring campus in Berkeley—is the harvest of our steadfast supporters: American Muslims who have chosen to invest in our community’s collective future by prizing education. Some have given tens of dollars, others have contributed tens of thousands of dollars, but all with the same intention, God willing: to root Islamic scholarship into the soil of America.

We hope and pray these fifty students are only the beginning, and that Zaytuna will bear the fruit of knowledge and devotion for generations to come.

If you are moved to make a gift, please do so at zaytuna.edu/give.

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God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a glittering star lit from [the oil of ] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.

Light upon light. God guides to His light whom He wills.

And God draws such comparisons for people; God has full knowledge of everything.

(Qur’an 24:35)

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