Genuinely interesting. You need to read the whole article AND read between the lines. This outfit is aiming for a genuine homegrown Islamic higher education with homegrown instructors and a homegrown curriculum.
The fact that it’s been in the works for a number of years already, has only a handful of faculty and is NOT being covered in petro-dollars by the usual suspects should be noted.
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“There are other Muslim higher education institutions in the United States, but Zaytuna officials say the college will be the first to merge Islamic and liberal arts education and, they hope, to be accredited. Zaytuna is seeking accreditation with the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges and its leaders hope to complete that process by the time its first class graduates.
Zaytuna has sought to emulate American universities in another way by setting the goal of creating a $5-million endowment by the end of this year and a $30-million endowment in five years. When classes began this week, the endowment was about $2 million short.
“The endowment has been going slow,” Shakir said. “It’s a new idea, people are used to investing in more tangible things, like schools or mosques.”
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This might be the real thing (i.e. a nascent yankee-doodle-islam) or at least, the beginnings of one. And that’s why it’s unable to raise dough from the perfidious princes.
Maybe this is a tactic to buy American confidence by INITIALLY appearing to be less threatening and militaristic and theocratic.