New College Teaches Young American Muslims

NPR ^ | 9-8-10 | Barbara Bradley Hagerty

[afraidfortherepublic]

Jamye Ford graduated with degrees in neuroscience and history from Columbia University before enrolling at Zaytuna College, where he currently studies Arabic.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Zaytuna College student Faatimah Knight turned down seven other colleges, including the University of Chicago, Smith and Bard.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Sheik Hamza Yusuf is considered a rock star by young Muslims in the U.S. and around the world.

[BenLurkin]

Muslim liberal arts college

Wow, talk about an oxymoron!

[afraidfortherepublic]

I’ll just add: leave it to Berkeley!

And what a waste of talented students. I mourn for these youngsters who seem to be going down a path of hopelessnes and despair. They seem to have good brains. Can’t somebody guide them in a better direction?

[NativeNewYorker]

Your tax dollars subsidized this fawning portrait.

[bayouranger]

“I think I’m looking forward to this more than I looked forward to going to Columbia, honestly,” he says.

No shiite!?

You’re a new koranimal who’s more Human & better madrassacated than all those Kafirs in the South.

Congrat’s brat!

Now, go blow up.

[a fool in paradise]

The idea that their faith can be woven into an American lifestyle rather than skew it plays out in several ways at Zaytuna. Yes, most of the women wear headscarves, but that's a choice; there is no dress code. Men and women sit next to each other in class, they chat easily and share meals when they break their fast — things that would never happen in an Islamic school overseas.

NPR never bothers to ask why things are different (never happen) at overseas' Islamic schools.

Is this a "soft" interpretation of Islam, a "transitional" appeciation of Islam (as students break away from what they understand to be freedoms in America), or are the overseas muslims following an overly restrictive "not really Islam" form of Islam?

[bwc2221]

Berkley is already a hellhole.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Your tax dollars subsidized this fawning portrait.

My tax dollars, but never again any of my charity dollars. I gave up donating to NPR about 25 years ago.

[ZULU]

I’m touched. (sarcasm)

[mojito]

“See!” says NPR, “all those tea party people are Islamophobes.” “Lookee here, see all these nice modest friendly middle-class Muslim students. Who could oppose them?”

[a fool in paradise]

He wants to tease apart the religion of Islam from the customs and ideas of the Middle East.

Are these Middle Eastern customs that preceed the foundation of Islam? Or are the applications of Sharia law under Islamic theocracy?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[Cacique]

He will be assimilated by peer and group pressure into conforming to their norm. It is the nature of all closed groups and that makes it at odds with society. The problem is that they want to change the rest of us into “them” one way or the other.

[Huskrrrr]

Yeah, but do they have a football team? And what do their cheerleaders wear?

[TheThirdRuffian]

Compare and contrast with the hit jobs they do on Christian schools or Jewish schools.

[a fool in paradise]

He says that during his 10 years studying abroad, he imbibed ideas that had nothing to do with Islam, such as anger at U.S. foreign policy. "This idea of not liking my country, the people I come from, became problematic for me, so I had that internal struggle in my own evolution. And I think that's happened to many young converts who have gone overseas."

I can't say that the foreign policies of the Middle East make me appreciative of their governments either. The citizens of some of these nations, such as Iran, clearly don't stand with the dictator who runs the place. But I can still denounce the Iranian government. Why don't more Middle Eastern nations?

Even Fidel Castro just denounced the Iranian nutjob's antisemitism.

[Seruzawa]

Throwbacks making dough.

[a fool in paradise]

Consider Jose Padilla and John Walker Lindh, Americans who learned their religion under al-Qaida and the Taliban, and are now in federal prison. Yusuf says that people with shallow theology and literal interpretations of scripture — of all types — can become extremists, and he argues that having an American Islamic school is a hedge against violent Islam.

John Doo Doo Walker Lennon Lidnh, the American Taliban, learned his background online before he headed off for training overseas.

If the "teachings" on youtube and islamic forums is "false", then more Western muslims need to be speaking out against them.

[a fool in paradise]

Yusuf says that people with shallow theology and literal interpretations of scripture — of all types — can become extremists, and he argues that having an American Islamic school is a hedge against violent Islam. Yusuf knows some might disagree, with people threatening to burn the Quran, and others, such as Newt Gingrich, equating Muslims with terrorists and Nazis. He's bracing for some pushback, but he's not worried.

To buy into NPR's radical lie, you'd have to believe that whenever the Left accuses the entire anti-abortion movement of wanting to bomb abortion clinics, that it makes even MORE anti-abortion activists want to become abortion clinic bombers.

Not buying it.

Meanwhile we've seen several pro-abortion activists killing anti-abortionist protesters and threatening others (James Lee was one of them). Does this mean that pointing out Left Wing extremists embrace terrorism will make even MORE of them become violent?

I thought that they find comfort in their violent rhetoric and plots when they are NOT publicly exposed and shamed (like those Democrats who plotted to firebomb the 2008 GOP convention and to kidnap delegates).