Al-Qur'an reading is mandatory in an American university!

The Dhaka Times Desk Al-Qur'an has been made compulsory in an American university! That happened by successfully dealing with the strong opposition of Christian organizations including the mainstream media!

An American university has made reading the Qur'an and its critical analysis compulsory. Such a work has been done by successfully dealing with strong opposition from Christian organizations including the mainstream media.

In 2002, the University of North Carolina (UNC) in America included a book in the compulsory curriculum for first year students. In protest of this, some extremist Christian organizations, in particular, two US citizens based in the United States, respectively; James Yocuvelli and Terry Moffitt, along with some students from the same university, formally protested. Some local political and media personalities also joined them. They continued to run the darbar at various levels of the local state government. As local MPs voted to stop funding the university's compulsory Quran course, the decision was reported to the university's governing council.

That is why the university authorities made some changes in the course while keeping their curriculum intact. The change is that if a student does not want to read the Quran or if the student's parents do not want their children to read it, then they can. But in that case, the student has to submit a paper to his university on why he does not want to read Quran as his summer course.

The opponents of the course could not agree on this amendment. They claimed that even if the university accepts this demand, the students will not get any benefit. Because if a student doesn't want to take the Qur'an course, he has to write an intellectual essay against the Qur'an when he submits papers to the university justifying his unwillingness. If he wants to write an article, he has to read the Quran!

Due to which they were not satisfied with the decision of the university authorities and approached the court. They also petitioned the court for an injunction against the university authorities' decision to teach the book containing the Quran and its commentary. However, the judges of the court rejected their request.