YALE UNIVERSITY GETS ISLAMIC LAW CENTER

New Haven, 1 Dzulhijjah 1436/15 September 2015 (MINA) – Catering to the growing number of Muslim students, Yale University will get its first Islamic law and civilization center after receiving a $10 million gift from a Muslim banking and real estate magnate.

“We’re taking this step by step, it will require some time and a lot of thought to put a program this ambitious, this complex into motion,” Sterling professor and former Dean of Yale Law School, Anthony Kronman said, On Islam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

“The hope is that by the end of this year, several major components of the program will be in place and others will follow in short order.”

Kronman was speaking about plans to build up a new center for the study of Islamic Law and Civilization layer by layer over the next couple of years.

Affiliating the Yale Law School, the Islamic law center will bring scholars of Islam to campus for lectures, seminar discussions, visiting professorships and fellowships.

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Funded by Abdallah Kamel, chief executive of a banking and real estate company based in Saudi Arabia, the center will be named after his name.

With a schedule set for the continuation of the lecture series, the center’s first resident fellow will arrive later this fall.

The Islamic center that will provide support for research, and possibly travel aims to bring in a visiting professor in the field of Islamic law within the next few years as well.

“Every program that is established, every initiative at the Yale Law School is undertaken with the ambition to be the very best in the world,” Kronman, who will serve as one of the co-directors of the center, said.

“We mean for this program to be a model in that regard as well.”

The United States is home to a Muslim minority of between six to eight million.

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A 2013 survey found that American Muslims are the most moderate around the world.

It also showed that US Muslims generally express strong commitment to their faith and tend not to see an inherent conflict between being devout and living in a modern society.

The announcement of the new Islamic law center has won the praise of Yale students who expressed excitement.

“I’m excited that Yale is taking the initiative to establish such a center and am interested to see how it develops over time,” Margaret Moor ’18 said.

“And I think it is absolutely necessary given the changing relationship between the United States and states in the Middle East.”

For Matt Kemp LAW ’15, center will be a great addition to the curriculum. He added that it will gain popularity once it is open.

Another law student, Sarah Esty, believes that the new center will offer a diverse environment in the campus through providing access to a wide variety of speakers, research positions and off-campus travel opportunities to learn more about Islam.

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“So I think the gift couldn’t have come at a better time, and I’m excited about the opportunity to see where this goes as the center is developed,” Esty said.

Last March, Zaytuna Muslim College received formal academic accreditation last weekend, becoming the first officially recognized Islamic institution of higher learning in the country of seven million Muslim population.

Opening its doors to first students in its rented space in a Baptist seminary in Berkeley in August, 2010, the college offers two majors; Arabic language and Islamic law and theology.

Zaytuna College earned its reputation as a great educational institute, being compared to great Catholic colleges, such as Georgetown or Notre Dame. (T/P006/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)