Renovatio: The Podcast Zaytuna College

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 is a writer on Islamic thought and the dynamics between tradition and modernity in a secular age.

In a thought-provoking exchange, Rushain Abbasi, a scholar of Islamic thought, and Omar Qureshi, provost of Zaytuna College, present their ideas of why shirk retains theological utility for Muslims today because the concept goes far beyond idols of stone. Ubaydullah Evans facilitates the conversation.

Rushain Abbasi is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities and Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University.

Omar Qureshi is provost of Zaytuna College and a scholar of educational philosophy, ethics, theology, and Islamic law,

Ubaydullah Evans is the scholar-in-residence of the American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM) and an instructor with the Ta’leef Collective.

Is there a way to reconcile modern intuitions about egalitarianism with historical relations based on hierarchy? Scholars Mohammad Fadel and Lawrence Jannuzzi discuss the contours of equality, power, and hierarchy from both an Islamic legal and contemporary political perspective.

Mohammad Fadel is a professor of law at the University of Toronto.

Lawrence Jannuzzi is a scholar of medieval history and political theory and a professor at Zaytuna College.

Stephen A. Gregg, a twice contributor to the journal speaks with Asad Tarsin about the inspiration behind his Renovatio essay, “The Only Real Solitude.”

Stephen A. Gregg is a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas, in Texas.

Joshua Lee Harris specializes in the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

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 to communities everywhere, notes Ogunnaike; it’s often seen as superfluous, compartmentalized from other values, or reserved for the elite when, in fact, beauty remains an existential need for every human being. Ubaydullah Evans engages with Ogunnaike on the quiddity of beauty, beauty as it relates to a fuller understanding of God, and the correlation between beauty and spiritual maturity.

Oludamini Ogunnaike is assistant professor of African religious thought at the University of Virginia.

Ubaydullah Evans is the scholar-in-residence of the American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM) and an instructor with the Ta’leef Collective.

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.” Tarsin and Harris exchange ideas about humility as a prerequisite for true gratefulness, Imam al-Ghazālī’s three components of gratitude, and what evolution can’t explain about gratitude.