Iman University

Iman University (also al-Iman University, el-Eman University, or al-Eman University; جامعة الإيمان; Jāmiʿat al-Īmān) is a Sunni religious school founded in 1993 in San‘a’, Yemen. Al-Iman means the Faith.

As of January 2010, it reportedly had 6,000 students.

Its founder and principal director is Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who is classified by the US Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and who is also under sanction by the United Nations. In 2004, he was designated a terrorist associated with al-Qaeda by both the U.S. and the United Nations. He was theological adviser to Osama bin Laden and co-founder of the main Yemeni opposition party, Islah.

The Treasury statement mentions that some students at Iman University have been arrested for political and religious murders. Some believe that the school's curriculum deals mostly, if not exclusively, with radical Islamic studies, and that it is an incubator of radicalism. Students are suspected of having assassinated three American missionaries, and "the number two leader for the Yemeni Socialist Party", Jarallah Omar. John Walker Lindh, now serving a 20-year prison sentence in connection with his participation in Afghanistan's Taliban army, is a former student of the university.

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who has taken classes and lectured at Iman University, has also been linked to al-Qaeda.

The Sunday Times has established that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 suspected bomber who was arrested on Christmas Day 2009, attended lectures by al-Awlaki at the university in 2005.

However, University officially denies that Imam Anwar al-Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ever studied or taught there.