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Copyright by Maryam Kashani 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Maryam Kashani Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: SEEKERS OF SACRED KNOWLEDGE: ZAYTUNA COLLEGE AND THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN MUSLIMS Committee: Kamala Visweswaran, Supervisor Sofian Merabet, Co-Supervisor Craig Campbell Hina Azam Charles Hirschkind Lok Siu SEEKERS OF SACRED KNOWLEDGE: ZAYTUNA COLLEGE AND THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN MUSLIMS by Maryam Kashani, B.A.; M.F.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2014 Dedication To the Seekers Image 1: Imam Abdallah ibn Alawi al-Haddad (d.1720), Intention for Seeking Knowledge and Study Bismillah al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm. Al-Ḥamdullilāhi rabbil ‘ālamīn wa ṣalla allāhu ‘alā sayyidina Muḥammadin wa ‘alā ālihi wa ṣaḥbihi wa sallam. Nawaytu al-ta‘alluma wa ta‘līma wa al-tadhakkura wa al-tadhkīr wa al-naf‘ wa al-intifā‘ wa al-ifāda wa al-istifāda wa al-ḥath ‘ala al-tamassuki bi kitāb illāhi wa sunnati rusūlihi wa al-du‘ā ila al-hudā wa al-dalālata ‘ala al-khayri wa ibtighāha’ wajih illāhi wa marḍātihi wa qurbihi wa thawābihi subḥānahu wa ta‘ala In the name of the Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. And salutations and greetings upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions. I intend to study and teach, take and give a reminder, take and give benefit, take and give advantage, to encourage the holding fast to the book of Allah and the way of His Messenger, and calling to guidance and directing towards good, hoping for the countenance of Allah and His pleasure, proximity and reward, transcendent is He. Acknowledgements Alḥamdulillāh. This dissertation owes too much to too many people; it is a true expression of what it means to be in relation. I must express eternal gratitude to and seek forgiveness and mercy from the students, scholars, and staff, past, present, and future of Zaytuna College. Your generosity and patience have been a great gift and lesson. I must also thank the Zaytuna founders Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, and Dr. Hatem Bazian, the Board of Trustees, Advisory committee, Academic Affairs committee, and the Executive team and staff who approved and enabled my research. Ustadh Abdullah, Imam Tahir, Ustadh Yahya, Ustadha Shirin, Ustadh Mahan, Ustadha Colleen, Ustadh Yusuf, Ustadha Rania, Ustadha Suhad, Ustadh Muhammad, Imam Abdul Latif, Ustadh Adrian, Ustadh Dawood, Ustadh Ebad, Ustadh Siddique, Ustadha Nejma, Ustadh Mustafa, Ustadh Usama, Ustadh Dustin, Ustadha Saliha, and Ustadha Liliana taught me much in the most explicit and subtle of ways. This research was supported by the Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education Dissertation Fellowship; PEO Foundation Scholar Award; the College of Liberal Arts, the Graduate School, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Middle East Studies, and the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; the California Council for the Humanities - California Documentary Project; and the Austin Film Society. My dissertation committee Drs. Kamala Visweswaran, Sofian Merabet, Craig Campbell, Hina Azam, Charles Hirschkind, and Lok Siu were great champions, mentors, and interlocutors, who were likewise exceedingly generous and patient with me. Other teachers and advisors likewise contributed to the best of my work, including Kamran Ali, vi James Brow, Kristen Brustad and Mahmoud al-Batal (and all my Arabic teachers), Jeff Chang, Tarek El-Ariss, Maria Franklin, Kaushik Ghosh, Ted Gordon, S. Akbar Hyder, Munir Jiwa, Farid Senzai, Denise Spellberg, and Katie Stewart. My research benefitted greatly from workshops and presentations at UC Berkeley’s Anthropology as Transgression and Translation working group; the Islam In/Of America workshop at Yale University; the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland; the Migrations of Islam Symposium at Michigan State University; the Islamic Studies Workshop at the University of Chicago; and Shifting Borders: American and the Middle East/North Africa at the American University of Beirut. Sisters and Brothers Zareena, Su’ad, Tahir, Sadaf, Abdurrahman, Bita, Sohail, Arshad, Anila, Roger, Mariam S., Jawad, Sabahat, and Junaid deserve a special shoutout. In the San Francisco Bay Area, I benefitted from having a wonderful community of thinkers and seekers. Sister Dhameerah Ahmad and Sister Khadijah O’Connell have been wonderful guides, supports, and role models. Thank you to Salah Brown for facilitating my video installation, When They Give Their Word, their Word is Bond at Siete Potencias Africanas. Thank you to my Amu Nasser, Seemi, Amina, Nadine and family, Petrina, Dharini, and the Zaytuna Ladies for providing needed pillows and blankets. Sara Ludin and Farah El-Sharif continue to be incredible supports and interlocutors; I can not express how blessed I feel to have benefitted from your intellectual and spiritual companionship. There are so many other people who contributed to my “return” to the Bay Area and likewise shared their own histories, reflections, heartaches, and hopes with me, please wait for the book! Likewise, my peoples in Chicago, who have given me a new home and sense of community. Amongst those in the Zaytuna community, I must especially acknowledge the Sisters and Brothers of Classes 2014 and 2015 who shared and entrusted so much of vii themselves with me. I look forward to seeing the fruits of these years. Haroon Sellars consistently served as a reminder and teacher along this journey; the best parts of my dissertation and films are due to his and others’ guidance. The failings are entirely mine. I must especially thank Sofian for being a great friend, teacher, and interlocutor, who went beyond the call of duty in getting me through this madness. And Kamala who took a chance on a struggling filmmaker, I cannot express the debt owed. My only hope is that I honor the intellectual genealogy she has bestowed upon me as I further the transmission. My Bay Area kin from my Amu Nasser to Shahdi and Kiana and my Underground Railroad family made coming home sweet and time too short. My parents Kimiko and Mansour, sister Marjon, and husband Junaid have endured this process as much as I have, if not more so. My gratefulness, humility, and shame at not doing better, faster is not expressable in words. Thus, as my father says, “less talk, more action.” viii Seekers of Sacred Knowledge: Zaytuna College and the Education of American Muslims Maryam Kashani, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisors: Kamala Visweswaran Sofian Merabet Abstract: In a time when “traditional” Islam and Islamic education are seen as incommensurable with American society and ideals, American Muslims are mobilizing traditions of Islamic scholarship within liberal arts institutional frameworks to articulate and establish the future possibilities of Islam and being Muslim in North America. This research shows how the Islamic discursive tradition is being critically engaged by the scholars and students of Zaytuna College to craft an “American Islam” based on a shared moral and ethical system that draws from and is relevant to the heterogeneous experiences of diverse Muslims and their material circumstances. Based on eighteen months of ethnographic research at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, and in the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area, this study’s methodological approach is grounded in participant-observation, interviews, and visual ethnography. ix Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... x List of Images .............................................................................................................xiii Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 American Muslims...................................................................................................... 4 Three Generations of Seekers ..................................................................................... 9 Right to Look ............................................................................................................ 16 Outlaws in Medina.................................................................................................... 28 Ethical Transmissions ............................................................................................... 40 Chapters Breakdown................................................................................................. 44 Chapter 1: Knowledge is a Right............................................................................... 48 The Path is Straight and Wide .................................................................................. 52 Beginnings ................................................................................................................ 55 Milestones and Fortresses......................................................................................... 67 Madhhabs.................................................................................................................
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