Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > First Muslim College Might Well Become Hotbed of Radical Islam
First Muslim College Might Well Become Hotbed of Radical Islam
March 1, 2010
First Muslim College Might Well Become Hotbed of Radical Islam By BEILA RABINOWITZ
March 1, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California was founded by Hamza Yusuf, Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian. The freshman class will consist of 25 students.
According to a report in Islam On Line [see, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2010-02/24/02.shtml#ixzz0gTft8Pj9]
"Zaytuna College is in the rigorous process of seeking accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a process that will take a number of years and one that Imam Shakir hopes will be completed by the time the freshman class graduates...they have been able to achieve the goal of raising nearly $4 million needed for its temporary location at Berkeley. Now they face the challenge of raising upwards of $65 million for an endowment fund that will ensure a consistent monetary support and alleviate the need for constant fundraising."
All three founders have made extremist statements supportive of radical Islam.
At a 2004 rally in California Bazian, "ungrammatically declared to a crowd of protestors, "we're sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change fundamentally the political dynamics in here. They're gonna say, 'some Palestinian being too radical' well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!" [source, http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=13384]
In a 2004 blog entry entitled Hamza Yusuf Fails My Test, Dr. Daniel Pipes wrote:
"I have offered a number of questions to ask of Muslims to determine whether they are radical or moderate. Hamza Yusuf Hanson, called by the Guardian "arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar," announced at the just-ended convention of the Islamic Society of North America, "I took that test and I failed. And I want to say to all of you, I hope you fail that test too." There is no "test" involved but if Yusuf informs me that he failed it anyway, that's useful information because it identifies him as an extremist."
[source, http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/09/hamza-yusuf-fails-my-test]
A 2009 World Net Daily article on Zaid Shakir titled CAIR Speaker To Muslims: OK To Attack Fort Bragg, reported that, "Radical Islamic cleric Zaid Shakir, a frequent guest speaker at CAIR events, tells his Muslim audiences: "Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad."
Also mentioned in the piece, "Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. Islam doesn't permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people," Shakir once told a Muslim audience. However, "If you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that's something else." [source, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=115687]
As noted above, Zaytuna College is seeking accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges [WASC]. If this is allowed to take place, WASC could well be sanctioning the existence of America's first college level jihadi madrassa.
©2010 Beila Rabinowitz. All rights reserved.
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