• About
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    In 2009, Zaytuna College was founded in Berkeley, California, with a mission that called for grounding students in the Islamic scholarly tradition as well as in the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.

  • Academics
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    As a Muslim liberal arts college in the West, Zaytuna offers a curriculum that provides its students with a foundation in the intellectual heritage of two major world civilizations: the Islamic and the Western.

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  • Admissions & Aid
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    Our mission is to educate students to become morally, intellectually, and spiritually accomplished individuals ready to contribute to our contemporary world in ways that are proportionate to their gifts and to the needs of human society.

     

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  • Campus Life
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    Zaytuna’s campus is on Holy Hill and students enter the College as part of a cohort, a community of learners that travel together through the curriculum.

Mahsuk Yamac

Dean of Graduate Studies. Lecturer.

Mahsuk Yamac

Biography

Email: mahsuk@zaytuna.edu

Office hours: By appointment

Mr. Mahsuk Yamac is a scholar of the classical Islamic sciences with licenses to teach in all pertinent knowledges. His field specialties include Islamic Philosophy and the Liberal Arts, Arabic Grammar and Morphology, Logic, Argumentation Theory (Ādāb al-Baḩth wa-l-Munāẓara), and the Science of Lexical Semantics and Word-Coinage (‘ilm al-wad’). At Zaytuna College, Mr. Yamac has taught Islamic Philosophy 1 (Hidāyat al-Ḥikma), Islamic Philosophy 2-3-4 (Bidāyat al-Ḥikma), Arabic Grammar (Iẓhār al-Asrār).

Prior to his post at Zaytuna College, Mr. Yamac was the chair of Classical Islamic Sciences at Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education (İSAR) from 2012 to 2016.

Mr. Yamac is a native Kurdish and Turkish speaker, is fluent in Arabic, and has reading and writing competencies in Persian and Ottoman.

Mr. Yamac joined the faculty of Zaytuna College in Fall 2017.

Education
Publications
Professional Activities

Education



  • Zaytuna College, BA, Islamic Law and Theology, 2019

  • Anadolu University, Turkey, AA, Theology, 2011

  • Fatḥ al-Islam University, Syria, BA, Theology, 2004


Ijazah 'Ilmiyyah




  • Shaykh Muḥammad Rabi‘ al-Nadwī, Hadith Studies, Lucknow, India, 2013




  • Shaykh Sa‘īd Aḥmad Palanpūrī, Hadith Studies, Deoband, India, 2013




  • Shaykh Salmān al-Nadwī, Hadith Studies, Lucknow, India, 2013




  • Shaykh Husni Geçer, Classical Islamic Sciences (rational and transmitted), Istanbul, Turkey, 2011




  • Shaykh Nūr ad-Dīn ‘Itr, Hadith Studies, Damascus, Syria, 2011




  • Shaykh Muḥammad Emīn Er al-Mirānī, Classical Islamic Sciences, Ankara, Turkey, 2010




  • Shaykh Muhammad Salīh al-Ghursī, Classical Islamic Sciences (rational and transmitted) Konya, Turkey, 2002




  • Shaykh Muḥammad Nūr Orak, Classical Islamic Sciences, Diyarbakır, Turkey, 2000



Journal Articles


“Cumhuriyet Döneminde Medreseler: Alet İlimlerinin Mahiyeti, Önemi ve Gayesi” [Classical madrasas in the republican era: The nature, importance and purpose of the classical sciences], Rihla 13: 33–40. 


Books



  • Glossary of Abhari’s Isaghoji in Classical Logic. Translation with commentary from Arabic to Kurdish. In progress. 

  • Amthila, Diagrams of Conjugating Verbs and Declining Nouns. Translation with commentary from Arabic and Ottoman Turkish to English. Unpublished.

Lectures, talks, and other speaking engagements



  • ISAR Online Conference. Al-Usul wa’l-Wusul fi al-Ulum al-Islamiyya, Istanbul, 2020.

  • International Kurdish Studies Conference at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, 2019.

  • “مراتب العلوم الإسلامية” [The hierarchy of the Islamic sciences]. Amman, Jordan, 2013.  

  • “نشاطات علمية في تركيا وخصوصا في جنوب شرقها بين الماضي والحاضر” [Intellectual activity in Southeastern Turkey: Between past and present]. Nadwat al-‘Ulamā’, Lucknow, India, 2012.

  • “منهج التدريس في العلوم الإسلامية” [The methodological approach to education in the Islamic sciences]. New Delhi, India, 2012.

  • “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Medreseler: Alet İlimlerinin Tertibindeki Mantık” [Classical madrasas in the republican period: Logic in the order of the classical sciences], 5. Genç Akademisyenler Buluşması, Mardin, Turkey, June 17–19, 2011.


Previous Posts



  • 2015 Founding Member, Hayra Davet Vakfı [The Foundation for Summoning to Virtue], Istanbul

  • 2012–2016 Chair of Classical Islamic Sciences, Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education (İSAR), Istanbul

  • 2009–2016 Lecturer, Centre for Arts and Sciences, Istanbul

  • 2005–2008 Columnist, Söz Gazetesi [Söz Newspaper], Diyarbakır

  • 2005–2008 Producer, Söz TV Channel, Diyarbakır

  • 2004–2009 Founder and Chair, Classical Madrasa of Islamic Sciences under Dil, Bilim ve Kültür Araştırmaları Derneği [The Foundation for Research in Language, Science and Culture]; Founder and Director, Diyarbakir


Personal Interests


English and Arabic literature, philosophy, theology, and rational sciences