ZAYTUNA COLLEGE

At Zaytuna College, we recognize that learning is not limited—neither to classrooms and books nor to the regular school year. While many of our students took recess for the summer, the incoming freshman and sophomore classes engaged in the pursuit of learning Arabic through our Summer Arabic Intensive. In its first level, taken the summer before freshman year, the program introduces students to Modern Standard Arabic, aiming to help students achieve basic listening, reading, speaking, and writing competence in the language. In the summer before sophomore year, the program centers on a systematic study of standard Arabic morphology (‘ilm al-taṣrīf) and grammar (‘ilm al-naḥw) through Al-Ājarrūmiyyah, a comprehensive classical text by Ibn Ājarrūm (d. 1323). Alongside the yearly language courses, the intensive forms the backbone of our curriculum, fulfilling the oft-repeated advice given to new students—study Arabic, and do it well.

Zaytuna’s master of arts degree in Islamic texts is intended to provide students with higher-level access to the Islamic tradition through a guided course of study in Islam’s primary sources.

The MA degree is a two-year program that culminates in a summative thesis. The coursework includes 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. Furthermore, each of the concentrations has a comparative track that allows students to study texts in the European tradition that parallel the Islamic texts in their ideas and methods. For example, the study of Islamic philosophy can be augmented by the study of Latin scholasticism, or the study of Islamic mysticism can be augmented by readings in Greek Neoplatonism.