[JosephW]

This actually came to me via an email dealing with higher education. The URL above is for Berkeley showing they really did add the class.

This is just an introductory class as the advanced study of islam involves learning how to fly (not necessarily land).

[JosephW]

It had to be Berkeley!

[Frohickey]

Does the Berkeley Islamic History Course also have a section where it talks about the anatomy of an Islamic jihadist? ;)

[JosephW]

Students [Al-Quaida] communicate with each other via email and message boards

[Publius6961]

Seriously... When does this course begin and how long does it run?
Is there a syllabus or a textbook?
Has anyone reading this seen it?

This could be fascinating.
I suspect it is less a history than an indoctrination.
But I am willing to reserve judgement until I see.

I just fear that there are many clueless in the Bay area who would actually pay over 500 bucks to have their pollyana view of Islam confirmed.

[Physicist]

While I suppose that everyone here who's complaining is already an expert in Islamic history and culture, may I humbly suggest that most Americans are not, and that therefore courses like this are sorely needed right now. In WWII, many Americans took it upon themselves (as befits good citizens) to learn German and Japanese language, history and culture. The people who did this were not castigated as unpatriotic by their neighbors, but viewed as making a valid contribution to the war effort. Back then people understood that when we go to war with a foreign people, it behooves us to know a little bit about whom we're fighting.

[AdA$tra]

Her is the FREE shorter online version as taught by me:

Kill all the Infidels. Go to Heaven.

[Salman]

If it weren't Berkeley, I'd say there's nothing wrong with a college offering a course in Islamic history.
It being Berkeley, we know how it will be taught.

[Physicist]

And when a liberal pans a book he hasn't read, based solely on the fact that the author is a known conservative, how do we react?

To be sure, we all frown upon Berkeley and the attitudes it typically espouses. (I say "typically" because the stench of Berkeley politics does not taint everything there; the physics research at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, for example, is world-class.) But that being said, I fail to see why the Islamic history course should be singled out for criticism on FreeRepublic, instead of, say, the art history course.

Berkeley is radically leftist. It deserves criticism for that, but not for doing what a university ought to be doing right now, which is offering a public course on a suddenly important topic.

[Noumenon]

Here's your Islamic history:

Death
Destruction
Massacre
Cultural genocide
Despotism Barbarism

Any questions?