Lenn E. Goodman, an expert on Jewish and Islamic metaphysics, joins Esme Partridge to discuss the philosophical heritage of AI (artificial intelligence)—which he locates in the medieval and renaissance study of alchemy, which ultimately sought to create man from matter—and the implications of our rapid embrace of AI.…

"One thing that is true of [the Great Books] list is that you cannot… think that it is a unified, monolithic view of the truth. Hobbes and Machiavelli disagree vehemently with Plato, right? There's some continuity there, but Aquinas does not agree with David Hume, who is an atheist. So, at a minimum, an honest reading of that tradition is an introd…

"The empirical in the traditional notion of reason is only one component in the uncovering of our knowledge. But knowledge really involves uncovering the intelligible object. So what that means is the intelligible object is not there in the empirical world—that actually means transcending the empirical world to make contact with this intelligible e…

“If your ultimate concern is yourself, if you have spent your life building a monument to yourself, then in biblical terms, that’s idolatry. I think we live in an idolatrous society… I think it is extremely difficult for people to achieve a moral life without a community.” Chris Hedges speaks to Renovatio editor Safir Ahmed about what fuels our con…

In this podcast, Muhammad U. Faruque speaks with Esme Partridge on his recently published book, Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing, which examine notions of selfhood and subjectivity before and in the modern period. Muhammad U. Faruque is Inayat Malik Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati. Esmé L. K. Partridge …

Listen and read show notes on Renovatio: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/media/what-other-than-god-do-we-worshipAv Zaytuna College

Listen and read show notes on Renovatio: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/media/protection-from-powerAv Zaytuna College

Listen and read show notes on Renovatio: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/media/what-is-the-nature-of-being-aloneAv Zaytuna College

What better topic for discussion than beauty, muses Oludamini Ogunnaike, a regular contributor to Renovatio and a scholar of Islam in north and west Africa. Beauty is inseparable from truth, goodness, and justice, yet reference to it is missing from many of our most important discussions on those matters. The neglect of beauty has been detrimental …

Asad Tarsin, author of Being Muslim: A Practical Guide, speaks with Joshua Lee Harris, a specialist on the work of Thomas Aquinas, on his article for Renovatio, “The Human Arts of Graceful Giving and Grateful Receiving.” In their conversation, Harris explains how his desire to understand gratitude grew from wanting to inculcate gratefulness in his …

In this episode, scholars Caner Dagli and Andrew March discuss theories of democracy and their relationship to modern Islamic thought, how modern Muslims grapple with democracy’s promise as well as its baggage, and whether metaphysics can (or should) be untangled from politics. (While March raises Tunisia as an example of a succeeding Muslim democr…

The mere act of writing for one’s self tends to reveal the fact that each one of us contains multitudes. When we write in our diaries or journals, we employ rhetorical devices even though our audience is within us. Scott Crider and Sarah Barnette—both are teachers and scholars committed to the craft of writing—discuss how conversing with one’s self…

Asma T. Uddin litigated issues of religious liberty for years, but it wasn’t until Burwell v. Hobby Lobby—the US Supreme Court case about whether the Affordable Care Act required Christian owners of a private company to offer contraception as part of their employee health coverage—that she felt thrust into an arena where religious freedom was under…

What kind of equality could be universal? A scan of history shows that our modern ideal of equality is more fiction than fact. In this episode, Ubaydullah Evans interviews the historian Juan Cole on his forthcoming article for Renovatio that addresses the issue of equality by examining the text and context of the Qur’an. The two discuss how equalit…

Sarah Barnette, a scholar of Victorian literature, speaks with Fr. Francisco Nahoe on great books and the pleasure of reading. Fr. Francisco, a Roman Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, is a scholar of Renaissance literature currently teaching courses in rhetoric and philosophy at Zaytuna College. The writers Barnette reads, such as the Brontë si…

In the Netherlands, the political climate was toxic with anti-Islam bigotry when Joram van Klaveren made a name for himself as a prominent and ambitious politician. He helped to lead the Party for Freedom, with its central platform hostile to Islam and Muslims in the Netherlands. When he set out to write a book that would ground his rhetoric agains…

Hamza Yusuf interviews President Thomas Hibbs, former president of the University of Dallas, on the importance of rekindling a love of language so we might better articulate ourselves and possess the words to describe our experience of the world. Hamza Yusuf and Thomas Hibbs discuss, among other topics, how the silos created by our culture leave us…

How should religious philosophers understand the methods and goals of modern philosophy? In this episode, Caner Dagli interviews David Bentley Hart on the state of philosophy and whether the believer can be hopeful about its future. They take on the fragmentation of science, philosophy, and art and discuss the consequences of the humanities being c…

In this episode, Caner Dagli and Khalil Abdur-Rashid explore racialization and religion, using Dagli’s article for Renovatio, “Muslims Are Not a Race,” as a point of departure to examine whether the lens of race obscures actual motivations behind Islamophobia—be they sectarianism, dehumanization caused by war, or political disputes—or helps defang …

Juan Cole's Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires (2018) retells the history of the prophetic period in seventh-century Arabia through the context of a brutal war between the Iranian Sassanian Empire and the Roman Empire in the Near East. In this conversation, Juan Cole and Hamza Yusuf reflect on how a new understanding of the histor…

Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College, converses with Eva Brann, the sagely long time educator and author of St. Johns College in Annapolis Maryland about philosophy, wisdom, and wit.Av Zaytuna College

Scott Crider and Hamza Yusuf discuss the art and artifice of poetry. https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/authors/scott-crider https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/authors/hamza-yusuf ____________________________________ Moon Landing – W. H. Auden It’s natural the Boys should whoop it up for so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure it would not have occurred to w…

In modern educated circles, the philosophy of Conservatism doesn’t usually enjoy a good opinion. Liberalism being the default philosophy of the educated classes. The conversation we present today presents conservatism divorced from politics, as a philosophy of conserving only what is good of the past, and might challenge you to reconsider your opin…

Renovatio's Editor Safir Ahmed sits down with Cyrus Ali Zargar for a chat about his research into the role of storytelling in Islam's ethical tradition. Cyrus Ali Zargar is an assosiate professor of religion at Augustana College who recently published a book entitled The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy …

The study of Hadith is a subject which is often misunderstood. We asked Jonathan Brown to help clarify some of the most common misconceptions about the study of Hadith from different perspectives. Jonathan Brown is an American scholar of Islamic studies. He is an associate professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service where he also…

To many, the silent theology of Islamic art can speak more profoundly and clearly than the most scholarly works, and its beauty can be more evident and persuasive than the strongest of arguments. The Qur’an is not a set of syllogisms or prosaic rational proofs but a recitation of unmatched linguistic beauty, filled with symbols, stories, metaphors,…

A wide ranging interview about the study of Islam with Caner Dagli. Dagli is an associate professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, specializing in Qur'anic studies, interfaith dialogue, and philosophy. An editor of The Study Quran, he was among the 138 Muslim signatories of the 2007 letter “A Common Word Between…

In this episode, I’ll be breaking down the science of your food, and how you can utilize built in feature your body has always had to program it to work for you!

Hamza Yusuf at the inaugural Renovatio event on May 14th, 2017 at Zaytuna CollegeAv Renovatio