News & Events

Hamza Yusuf Hanson is president, co-founder, and senior faculty member of Zaytuna College. He is an advisor to the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. He also serves as vice-president for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, which was founded and is currently presided over by Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, one of the top jurists and masters of the Islamic sciences in the world.

Selected Works:

The Burda of al-Busiri: The Poem of the Cloak (2002)

Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms, and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart (2004)

The Content of Character: Ethical Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (2005)

Caesarean Moon Births: Calculations, Moon Sighting, and the Prophetic Way (2007)

The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi (2007)

Agenda to Change our Condition (2008)

The Prayer of the Oppressed (2010)

Walk on Water: The Wisdom of Jesus from Traditional Arabic Sources (2010)

The Pearls of the Faith (2017)

Education:

PhD candidate, Islamic Studies, GTU/UC Berkeley, CA, 2013 – present; BA, Religious Studies, magna cum laude, San Jose State University, CA, 1997; Honorary doctorate, conferred by Shaykh Shadhili Naifer, Dean of Zaytuna University, Tunisia, 1991; AS, Nursing, Imperial Valley College, CA, 1990; AA, English, Imperial Valley College, CA, 1990; Islamic Institute of Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi, (1981-1984); studied grammar, prosody, literature, logic, philosophy, and rhetoric with his father, David J. Hanson; studied philosophy and educational theory in seminar format with Mortimer Adler.

Islamic Education

Madrasah Studies, Granada, Spain, 1987.


Madrasah Studies, Medina, Saudi Arabia, 1986.


Madrasah Studies, Twaymarat, Mauritania, 1984–1985.


Madrasah Studies, Madrasah Bilal ibn Abi Rabah, Tizi, Algeria, 1984.


Madrasah Studies, Islamic Institute of al-Ain, Emirate of Abu Dhabi, 1981–1984.

Islamic Studies, Norwich, England, 1977–1980.


Private Studies with Shaykh Abdallah Ould Ahmadna, Shaykh Murabit Muhammad Amin, Shaykh Iqbal Ahmad al-Adhami, Shaykh Ahmad Badawi Tayyid al-Asma, Shaykh Muhammad Fatatri al-Azhari, Shaykh Murabit al-Hajj, Shaykh Abd al-Rahman Ould Murabit al-Hajj, Shaykh Murabit Muhammad Hassan Ould al- Hassan, Shaykh Abdal Hayy al-Imrawi, Shaykh Abdallah al-Kadi, Shaykh Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, Shaykh Hamid Omar al-Wali, Shaykh Muhammad al- Yaqoubi, Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Shaykh Murabit Ahmad Fal, Shaykh Ahmad Jabir Jibran, Shaykh Anas Abu Murad, Shaykh Abdal Aziz Qassar, Sidi Abu Said, Shaykh Bayyah Ould Salik, Mufti Muhammad Ahmad Shaybani, Shaykh Abdallah Ould Siddiq, Shaykh Muhammad Mahmoud Ould Zaydan, Shaykh Salih al-Ghursi 1980–present.

Received Teaching Licenses (ijāzah al-tadrīs) in the following subjects: Qur’anic Sciences; Arabic Grammar, Morphology, Elocution (tajwīd), Rhetoric (balāghah), Dialectics (bahth wa munādharah); Legal Theory (usūl al-fiqh);  Mālikī Jurisprudence (fiqh); Hadith Sciences, Theology ('aqīdah), Timekeeping (Sacred Astronomy), Logic, Ethics, Traditional Psychology (tasawwuf), 1987–2013.