Education

An Interview with the College of Islamic Studies (CIS)

Published

August 25, 2013

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11. What are some of the courses that have been offered already and what is planned?

So far, the College has offered these six classes, and they will be offered online again in the Fall.

We will be offered three new courses this fall, and they include:

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A full class schedule can be found at http://www.collegeislam.com/cis/schedule/

12. Is there a cost for enrollment? Where can students go for more answers about you and about the school?

Classes cost only $50. In the fall, however we will be raising the tuition to $70 because of demand and because we want to raise the quality of instruction. We use a cutting edge online system to manage and administer the courses.

For more information, people can visit CIS’ main website at http://www.collegeislam.com/. And here are the places you can find the schedule of classes & enrollment and more information about Shaykh Mustafa Umar. For the socially inclined, visit and like the CIS Facebook page.

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About Abdus-Sami Hoda

Abdus-Sami is a seasoned technology and product management executive in a web software company in Southern California. He has completed the coursework for a Bachelors in Islamic Studies from American Open University, and is currently pursuing his Masters degree at the same university. He is also the Lead Teaching Assistant at the College of Islamic Studies.

http://www.twitter.com/studentsjourney

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10 Comments

h

August 26, 2013 at 7:16 PM

jazzakallahkhair

Reply
- Abdus-Sami Hoda (@studentsjourney)
  
  August 27, 2013 at 2:25 PM
  
  Wa iyyakum. Thanks for taking the time out to read this.
  
  Reply
Summer

August 28, 2013 at 6:45 PM

Reading this article gave me a pang of longing. I live in the UK where education like this is hard to find if you don’t have the expenses. I pray you find every sucess with this college inshallah :)

Reply
- Abdus-Sami Hoda (@studentsjourney)
  
  August 29, 2013 at 12:23 PM
  
  Join us. Our online courses are available across the world.
  
  Reply
ahmadali

August 30, 2013 at 1:41 PM

I pray Allah to be very kind on the muslims living in different part of the world to be able to live a life similar to prophet and all those who make effort in this direction are lucky people

Reply
StrangerFromTheEast

September 14, 2013 at 11:45 AM

Looked interesting at first, but after further browsing I noticed they are promoting material from Hamza Yusuf whom I believe is a Sufi. Nothing else needed to know: I immediately closed the website.

If you want a good, tried and tested online islamic degree course: I recommend islamic online university (IOU) or Knowledge International university (KIU)

Reply
- Abdus-Sami Hoda (@studentsjourney)
  
  October 2, 2013 at 3:00 PM
  
  Salam StrangerFromTheEast,
  
  In all honesty, I’m not sure you read the whole article about our approach, if you scoured the website looking for someone or something you could disagree with. May Allah (swt) have mercy.
  
  Again, in all honesty, our Purification of the Soul class, like all our classes, encourages outside reading. The outside reading is optional. For this class we currently recommend “Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart” by Hamza Yusuf which is a translation and commentary of a prior Scholar’s work.
  
  We’re always evaluating the optional reading we recommend, and like is mentioned in the article, stay away from things that divide the Ummah. Perhaps this book may or may not be a part of our future curriculum, but it is no way a reason to avoid the college or to label it.
  
  IOU and KIU are good alternatives, and we work well with other colleges. In fact, we may have credit transfer agreements and accreditation agreements with many of them in the future.
  
  That being said, Alhumdulillah, we have no close to 400+ enrollments this term, and that would probably make us the biggest Islamic college in North America (from what I can tell). We are always looking for people support, supplication, and honest feedback. If you’d like to talk further, please feel free to tweet me, but I hope you see we’re honest and transparent about all this, and quite simply, just trying our best.
  
  May Allah (swt) accept.
  
  Reply
  - StrangerFromTheEast
    
    October 4, 2013 at 10:42 AM
    
    Wa alaikum salam warahmatullah to the contrary I scoured the website looking for any resources that would actually help me.
    
    How can you say that the references or supplementary material that are in there, has nothing to do with the credibility of the rest of the curriculum or even the institution as a whole?
    
    When you put in references to topics or individuals that ‘may’ cause deviation to the very CORE of islamic beliefs which is tawheed, then you would need to be careful of who you are supporting and what you are propagating. I am especially fearful for the new muslims out there.
    
    I’m telling you this because I think you are honest, open and transparent in your intentions and I think you will take action by having scholars who are well grounded in matters of religion frame your curriculum, preferably scholars from Saudi Arabia.
    
    Reply
    - Abdus-Sami Hoda (@studentsjourney)
      
      October 4, 2013 at 11:57 AM
      
      Salam StrangerFromTheEast,
      
      A couple things to consider, and I’ll leave it at that.
      
      One of the keys goals of the college is to help build a foundation so that you can process books from different authors (that you may agree with, and those whom you may disagree with) so that students are not afraid of approaching other texts and can critically analyze the texts to take what benefits them, and reject (with adab) what does not.
      
      In class, we actually criticized some points in this book and others, and this is documented in the videos.
      
      The text we really wanted to get for the class was unavailable for such a large class. It had to be imported, and was not available from any seller in the US. With around 80+ students in each class, we needed a huge quantity and shipping costs were significant. Not to mention, we are offering the college at minimal cost, so the book itself would be more expensive than the class itself.
      
      In the end we chose a book which we could reference and discuss, and was available for free on the Internet for download (without copyright). If you have some other books you would recommend, please feel free to do so.
      
      But these are some of the practical implications of running a new school. Like I mentioned, we will continually work to improve our curriculum, but we also wont shy away from teaching students how to navigate the world of Islamic scholarship.
      
      The argument that the books are linked to the credibility of the organization is somewhat a red herring – because many controversial books (or uncontroversial books by controversial authors) are taught in many schools, and the teacher uses the text to teach what is right and what is wrong [and the principles to determine the difference]. If we only teach “our books” from “our scholars”, we limit ourselves and our students.
      
      As for tawheed, yes indeed that is imminently important. My own teachers are some of whom who teach at IOU and KIU. But I’ve also learned from the mistakes of other teachers in what to avoid, what areas are grey, etc. That education has been just as important. It would not be accurate to say that the truth lies in teachers from only one region of the world, or more so, from any one school.
      
      And Allah (swt) knows best. I have tried to be as honest and straight-forward as possible. Give us a try, if you don’t like it, ask for a refund.
      
      Reply
Cara Sholat

December 13, 2013 at 10:51 AM

This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah, Who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them, And who believe in what has been revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what was revealed before you, and of the Hereafter they are certain [in faith]. (al-baqarah:2-3)

Reply