• About
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    In 2009, Zaytuna College was founded in Berkeley, California, with a mission that called for grounding students in the Islamic scholarly tradition as well as in the cultural currents and critical ideas shaping modern society.

  • Academics
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    As a Muslim liberal arts college in the West, Zaytuna offers a curriculum that provides its students with a foundation in the intellectual heritage of two major world civilizations: the Islamic and the Western.

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  • Admissions & Aid
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    Our mission is to educate students to become morally, intellectually, and spiritually accomplished individuals ready to contribute to our contemporary world in ways that are proportionate to their gifts and to the needs of human society.

     

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  • Campus Life
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    Zaytuna’s campus is on Holy Hill and students enter the College as part of a cohort, a community of learners that travel together through the curriculum.

Ali Ataie

Dean of Undergraduate Studies

Ali Ataie

Biography

Email: aataie@zaytuna.edu

Office hours: By appointment

Dr. Ali Ataie is a scholar of biblical hermeneutics with field specialties in Sacred Languages, Comparative Theology, and Comparative Literature. At Zaytuna College, Dr. Ataie has taught Arabic, Creedal Theology, Comparative Theology, Sciences of the Quran, Introduction to the Qur’an, and Seminal Ancient Texts.

He received his BS in accounting from Cal Poly State University in 2000. In 2011, he received his MA in Biblical Studies from Pacific School of Religion, and in 2016, his PhD in Cultural and Historical Studies in Religion from the Graduate Theological Union.

Dr. Ataie’s PhD thesis, titled “Authenticating the Johannine Injil: Muslim ‘Polemirenic’ Interpretive Approaches to the Gospel of John,” is a faith-based hermeneutic of the Gospel of John in which the entire text is authenticated as being the true Gospel of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Qur’an.

Dr. Ataie is a native Persian speaker. He can read and write Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek.

Dr. Ataie joined the Zaytuna College faculty in 2012.

Office hours: By appointment

Education
Professional Activities

Education



  • Graduate Theological Union, PhD, Cultural and Historical Studies in Religion, 2016

  • Pacific School of Religion, MA, Biblical Studies, 2011

  • Cal Poly State University, BS, Accounting, 2000

Lecture, talks, and other speaking engagements



  • “Is God Allah?” Zaytuna College.

  • “Finding Muhammad in the Bible” Zaytuna College.

  • “The Qur’an and the Crucifixion.” Zaytuna College.


Personal Interests


Reading, studying, and writing.