The Incoherence of Secular Messiahs (Audio Essay)

The modern world knows it faces a void of meaning—and in a strange recurrence of history, some secular intellectuals are now calling for various forms...

The Silent Theology of Islamic Art (Audio Essay)

To many, Islamic art can speak more profoundly and clearly than even the written word. Is it wiser then for Muslims to show, not to tell?
Articl...

Dignity Is for the Heart, Not the Ego (Audio Essay)

Contrary to its usage in today’s public discourse, dignity is not something all humans universally have, but something that everyone must do.
Ar...

Can Materialism Explain the Mind?

Some philosophers believe materialism has now reached an insurmountable quandary in the question of consciousness.

The Human Arts of Graceful Giving and Grateful Receiving (Audio Essay)

There is something paradoxical about that deepest and most original source of social organization—namely, the giving and receiving of gifts. 

Wisdom in Pieces (Audio Essay)

Science, philosophy, and art have been blown apart, and our conversations have devolved into chaos. How do we begin to learn the art of disagreement?<...

Pluralism in a Monoculture of Conformity by Hamza Yusuf (Audio Essay)

Despite the diversity of our countless creeds, colors, and cultures, our society has been subsumed into a monoculture of ersatz arts, entertainment, a...

Pluralism in a Monoculture of Conformity- Hamza Yusuf (Audio Essay)

The Egalitarian Objection to Liberal Education

The Egalitarian Objection to Liberal Education
And Why the Liberal Arts Are Indispensable to Equality
By Thomas Hibbs

Transcendence and TikTok (Audio Essay)

What does it mean to “manifest” something, or for something to “become manifest”? For those familiar with Islamic mystical terminology, the concept of...

Other People's Truths: Reading Sacred Scripture in Secular Settings (Audio Essay)

Sacred scriptures certainly qualify as Great Books, but can they be read as literature in secular settings?
Read the essay by Eva Brann- https:/...

Resisting the Architecture of Apathy (Audio Essay)

The way societies driven by profit and production design and build lived environments breeds an apathy that, unchecked, can only lead to the dissoluti...

What Pico Thought—and What It Wrought (Audio Essay)

The dignity of man in his potential to be whatever he desires to be, this fifteenth-century Italian prince & philosopher gave rise to the modern secul...

The Sin of Cosmocide (Audio Essay)

What Islam Gave the Blues by Sylviane Diouf (Audio Essay)

Where Islam and Nationalism Collide by Zaid Shakir (Audio Essay)

Counting the Minutes: Productivity and the Well-Lived Day between Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī and Benjamin Franklin (Audio Essay)

Courteous Exchange in an Age of Empire by Sarah Barnette (Audio Essay)

What Walking Can Do For Our Souls (Audio Essay)

What is the Write Way to Read?

Does reading help you think if you write your thoughts about what you’re reading? What’s the difference between writing books about books, and writing...

Who Gets to Define Islam? with Caner Dagli

Who is better placed to say what Islam is: the academic from the “outside” or the practitioner from “within”? In this episode of the Renovatio podcast...

The Limits of Aggression

Asma Afsaruddin argues that jihad (martial engagement) as articulated in the Qur’an and by numerous classical Muslim scholars is primarily defensive i...

The Trouble with Consciousness (Mark Delp and Esme Partridge)

We Are Not Our Brain (Muhammad Faruque and Esme Partridge)

Modern science identifies the self with the brain, but this materialist conception of the self is wholly insufficient. 

The Ancient Roots of Transhumanist Thinking

Lenn E. Goodman, an expert on Jewish and Islamic metaphysics, joins Esme Partridge to discuss the philosophical heritage of AI (artificial intelligenc...

"Is a Great Books Education for Everyone" with Thomas Hibbs

"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...

"The Knowledge that Transcends the Empirical World" with Hasan Spiker

"The empirical in the traditional notion of reason is only one component in the uncovering of our knowledge. But knowledge really involves uncovering...

"The Decline of Morality Amidst the Celebration of the Self" with Chris Hedges

“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 w...

Sculpting the Self with Muhammad U. Faruque and Esmé Partridge

In this podcast, Muhammad U. Faruque speaks with Esme Partridge on his recently published book, Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flouris...

What, Other Than God, Do We Worship?

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

Protection from Power with Mohammad Fadel and Lawrence Jannuzzi

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

What Is the Nature of Being Alone? (Stephen A. Gregg and Asad Tarsin)

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

Why Beauty Is Not Optional with Oludamini Oggunaike and Ubaydullah Evans

What better topic for discussion than beauty, muses Oludamini Ogunnaike, a regular contributor to Renovatio and a scholar of Islam in north and west A...

Graceful Giving and Grateful Receiving

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...

Power to the People?

In this episode, scholars Caner Dagli and Andrew March discuss theories of democracy and their relationship to modern Islamic thought, how modern Musl...

Cultivating the Life Skill of Writing

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...

Are Believers a Political Tribe? (Asma T. Uddin and Caner K. Dagli)

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...

Equality in the Ancient World with Juan Cole and Ubaydullah Evans

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, Ubaydu...

What Makes a Book "Great"? Fr. Francisco Nahoe and Sarah Barnette

Sarah Barnette, a scholar of Victorian literature, speaks with Fr. Francisco Nahoe on great books and the pleasure of reading. Fr. Francisco, a Roman...

From Fanaticism to Faith: Joram van Klaveren and Ubaydullah Evans

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 ambitio...