Calling all radical Muslims and aspiring Islamists.
If you are planning to enroll in the freshman class of the first Islamic college within the United States, pack up your burqa or shalwat kameez and head off to Berkeley, California without delay.
Classes begin at Zaytuna College on Monday.
Zaytuna (which means “olives” in Arabic) promises to be unlike any other institution of higher learning within the country. The name was chosen, the website site proclaims, because olives are a “purifying fruit” since they produce purgative effects.
Only two majors are offered at the new college: Arabic Language and Islamic Law and Theology.
Students and teachers are not expected to be proficient in English but Arabic. This is evidenced by such misspellings as “accredation” for accreditation and “employement” for employment on the Zaytuna website.
They will not study US history but the history of Islam.
Their training in political science and economic will be confined to courses in shariah law.
At the end of their four years of education, the graduates of Zaytuna will be expected to take part of the Islamic conquest of the American continent - - a conquest that began with the Immigration and Naturalization Law of 1965. They will be qualified to serve as imams at the hundreds of new mosques that are cropping up throughout the country every year and as Islamic chaplains in the military.
On its website, the founders of Zaytuna say that Islam “cannot become rooted in a land until the land produces its own Islamic scholars.”
The school has applied for full accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Few Americans, including those who remain focused on the plans to erect a new mosque near the remains of 9/11, have paid heed to the creation of the new Islamic college, let alone that the founders of this new institution champion the cause of radical Islam and the imposition of shariah (Islamic law) on the Western world.
How radical are the founders and various faculty members?
Consider the following.
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf , the key founder of Zaytuna College, was born in Washington state and raised by his Roman Catholic father and Greek Orthodox mother in northern California as Mark Hanson. He converted to Islam in 1977. In 1991, he delivered a classic oration entitled “Jihad Is the Only Way” to the California chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America.
Writing to another Islamic group, Sheikh Yusuf said: “America is a country that has little to be proud of in its past and less to be proud of in the present. I am a citizen of this country not by choice but by birth. I reside in this country not by choice but by conviction in attempting to spread the message of Islam in this country. I became Muslim in part because I did not believe in the false gods of this society whether we call them Jesus or democracy or the Bill of Rights or any other element of this society that is held sacrosanct by the ill-informed peoples that make up this charade of a society… Fundamentals of Islam are being compromised…
Convention resolutions are meaningless Masonic exercises (sic) devised by men who desire to engage people in forums that would insure nothing changes… There should be no voting or debate… We have no room for ayes or nays.”
A CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) board director, Mr. Yusuf proclaimed the following two days before the attacks of 9/11: “This country is facing a terrible fate, and the reason for that is because the country stands condemned. It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did. And lest people forget, Europe suffered two world wars after conquering Muslim lands.”
After making such statements, Mr. Yusuf was not condemned for his anti-American rhetoric by government officials but rather received an invitation to come to the White House to pray with the president for the future of America.
Imam Zaid Shakir, another founder, serves as an adviser to CAIR and is a frequent speaker at CAIR gatherings. On one occasion, Imam Shakir ruled that Islamic law permits Muslims to attack C-130 military transport planes carrying the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “Jihad,” he said, “is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad.” He added that acceptable targets of jihad are U.S. military aircraft.
Hatem Bazian, the third founder of the new college, holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of California. He is ardent supporter of intifada (the militant uprising of Muslims) not only in Palestinian territory (in which he was born) but also throughout the United States.
Mr. Bazian recently addressed a cheering crowd of fellow jihadists by saying: Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream… giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton, every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and 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[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every– They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”
Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, says the new college is unfortunately symptomatic of a nation drowning in political correctness.
“As long as the left controls all of the media — except for Fox News and talk radio and some Internet sites — this kind of evil will continue to prosper…particularly in light of this current pro-Islamic administration,” Ms. Markell maintains.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org/.
