Education, Purpose, and Free Will

Hamza YusufMay 7, 202621 min0 comments

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Islamic History Time Management Spirituality Free Will & Moral Responsibility Purpose & Meaning Leadership Women in Islam Education

About this lecture

In this commencement address delivered at Zaytuna College, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf reflects on the true purpose of education — to cultivate wise judgment, moral discernment, and genuine leadership rooted in the prophetic model of the shepherd. Drawing on Islamic scholarship, classical philosophy, and the lives of female scholars in Islamic history, he challenges graduates to take their intellectual and spiritual formation seriously, guard their time, and go forth as people of weight, beauty, and service. The address closes with the timeless farewell counsel of the great Sufi saint Mu'inuddin Chishti.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is one of the most influential Islamic scholars in the Western world. Born Mark Hanson in Washington State in 1958, he embraced Islam in 1977 and spent over a decade studying the traditional Islamic sciences in the UAE, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania, most notably under the Mauritanian sage Murabit al-Hajj. He is the co-founder and president of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California — the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the United States — and has translated numerous classical texts, including "The Creed of Imam al-Tahawi" and "Purification of the Heart." His lectures on spirituality, classical scholarship, and the crisis of modernity have shaped a generation of Western Muslims.

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