Movement To Save Islamic Studies at UCLA Gains Steam

UPDATE - A student movement for religious tolerance has scored a major victory: on April 8, 2011, UCLA's Islamic Studies program announced it will re-open in fall 2011. Read more here.

When Ilona Gerbakher tells people that she's a Jewish student studying Islam and Arabic at UCLA, most people are fascinated and want to know more. But some are scared and suspicious. A few have assured her that the studies are necessary in order to "know your enemy."

Blind fear of Islam in America makes informed public debate impossible. We need more education about Islam in our schools and our universities. But in a case of the worst timing ever, the graduate Islamic Studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles is still in limbo after a freeze on admissions in 2008. The administration will vote on the future of the program this Friday, October 22.

Gerbakher, a fourth-year UCLA student, is leading a student movement to save the program. "Shouldn’t UCLA, with its world-renowned faculty, diverse student population and record of academic excellence, commit itself to fighting bigotry against Islam by educating the community?" she wrote in UCLA's student newspaper. UCLA students have held rallies, circulated a petition and mobilized on Facebook to campaign for the program.

UCLA's administration put a hold on admissions to address student complaints about mismanagement and administrative problems, UCLA's Daily Bruin radio show reported. But when this year's students graduate, there will only be two students left in the program -- with no solid plans to bring back, or fund, the program.

UCLA's program has one of the largest libraries on Islam and Arabic in the country, and is the only Islamic Studies program on the West Coast. Cutting the program - or keeping it in name only - will miss a great opportunity to inform students, and those they'll go on to work with, about Muslim culture and history. (It will also do nothing to counter efforts by other states to slash Islam from school curriculums.)

Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, who currently heads the program, says it's a shame that the program is currently being frozen. "Islam is in the news every single day. You cannot get more current and contemporary than the issue of Islamic societies, Islam as a religion, the whole lived experience of Islam and Muslims," he said in a radio interview.

Gerbakher told Change.org that the UCLA administration will vote on the program this Friday, October 22. Change.org members around the world have signed the petition to save Islamic Studies. Tell UCLA leaders to bring back the Islamic Studies program. With so much hatred and ignorance about Islam in this country, we need more education on Islam, not less.

Photo credit: Save Islamic Studies at UCLA