The amazing olive tree is considered blessed by all three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Perhaps the reason is that olives are one of the most purifying of all foods. Unlike other fruits, however, olives require extensive treatment by human hands to become palatable, purifying food. Similarly, a human being faces extensive “treatment” in order to become a refined spiritual and intellect adult. Such treatment has always been the role of the world’s great religions.

References to the olive abound in scripture. In the biblical Book of Deuteronomy, the Prophet Moses describes Palestine as a “good land, a land of olives.” The Book of Genesis says that, after the Flood, a dove brought an olive branch to the Prophet Noah as a sign that land was near. According to the Psalms, a man’s children are like “the slips of olive trees.” The Prophet Jesus also made references to the olive tree. Additionally, God swears an oath by the olive, saying, “By the fig and the olive, and Mount Sinai, and this secure city, We have made man in the finest order” (Qur’an 95:1-4). The Prophet Muhammad said, “Anoint yourselves with olive oil because it comes from a blessed tree.” Perhaps the most profound of all such references is found in the following Qur’anic passage,

"God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The likeness of divine light is as of a niche with a lamp inside; the lamp is in a glass; the glass is as if a shining star, lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the East nor of the West, its oil nearly luminous even without fire touching it. Light upon light: God guides whomever God will to divine light; and God gives people examples. And God is cognizant of everything." (Qur’an 24:35)

One of the greatest universities in the history of Islam, Jamiah al-Zaytunah (Olive University) in Tunis, provided intellectual and spiritual oil that lighted Africa for over a thousand years. Taking its name from this venerable tradition, Zaytuna College seeks to revive the tradition of sound Islamic learning.

Zaytuna College, the first Muslim liberal arts college in the United States, began in 1996 as Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California. The institute, through various programs and media, established an international reputation for its efforts to help revive Islam’s educational and intellectual reputation for its advocacy of traditional Muslim education.

In 2004, noting the paucity of religious leaders with the cultural literacy to tend to the spiritual and pastoral needs of American Muslims, Zaytuna Institute launched a pilot seminary program. After the culmination of that program, the Board of Directors of Zaytuna Institute guided the organization through the momentous effort of establishing an accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the United States.

In 2009, Zaytuna College was launched in Berkeley, California, featuring a two-month long Summer Arabic Intensive as its first academic program. Subsequently, the undergraduate program welcomed its inaugural freshman class for the Fall 2010 semester. Thereafter, Zaytuna College continued to refine its academic identity, firmly rooted in the American liberal arts tradition. In 2012, it had secured a historic building to serve as its permanent home in the heart of the Graduate Theological Union.

In 2017, Zaytuna College was blessed with a bucolic ten-acre historic campus at the top of “Holy Hill,” on Grizzly Peak in Berkeley, California. Our Marin campus serves as a true home for the first Muslim liberal arts college in the country.   

Among Our Illustrious Perennial Faculty

A people disconnected from their past will never move confidently into the future. At Zaytuna College, we believe we must acknowledge and remain connected to the giants who have laid the intellectual and spiritual foundation upon which we aspire to build.