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Renovatio: Signs for Our Times
Regular price $14.95The Qur’an states, “I will deflect from My signs those who are unjustly overbearing on earth. Even if they saw every sign, they would not believe in them. And even if they saw the right way they would not take to it, while if they saw the path of error they would take to it. This is because they have repudiated Our signs and been heedless of them.” In this issue, our writers reflect on the wondrous signs that pervade the cosmos and ourselves. Their essays clarify how the revelations of empirical science, far from opposing intelligent design, affirm its subtle grandeur and purposeful order and remind us how everything we experience ultimately points towards our Creator.
Look inside this issue of Renovatio: The Journal of Zaytuna College:
Table of Contents
States of Need are Gift-Laden Carpets
Adversity can be the best teacher—because through it one is rendered helpless and in need, which is, in fact, our true condition.
Michael Sugich
Reason and Belief in an Age of Empirical Science
The debate over God’s existence is not merely a question of logic or evidence but of underlying assumptions.
Muhammad U. Faruque
Art to What End? Bob Dylan and Jacques Maritain on Artistic Integrity
How a songwriter and a philosopher were troubled by the notion that art should conform to ideological, social ends.
Thomas Hibbs
Science Shows Nature Is Too Complex to Originate through Chance
In a personal reflection, an accomplished engineer takes on the Big Questions and discovers an ideological bias that stymies the scientific pursuit of truth.
Asad Islam
The Power of Beauty in Dark Places
Among the transcendentals, Beauty is often left for last: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. But might it succeed when the others fail?
Angel Adams Parham
What Darwin Believed—and Why It Matters
Studying Darwin’s life and his philosophical influences tests our beliefs about “science” and helps us to be informed, granular, and selective about our commitments.
Oubai Elkerdi
The Purpose of Pain—and Pleasure
A conversation examining Qur’anic teachings on the providential purpose of both suffering and happiness in our lives.
Nasrin Rouzati, Hamza Yusuf, and Aisha Subhani
The Readiness of the Soul: Reflections on a Sonnet by Martin Lings
An English Muslim sage, a Western poetic form that may be indebted to Arabic literature, and verses that aid us in the path.
Emilio Alzueta
Is Naturalism Ideology? How an Anti-Religious Philosophy Impedes Scientific Progress
The broader academic paradigm underlying modern science not only misrepresents its origins but profoundly alienates most—if not all—wayfaring souls.
Joshua Lee Harris
Salient Features of an Islamic Framework for Environmental Sustainability
A comprehensive Islamic environmental framework needs methods of architecture, scientific study, engineering, art, and craftsmanship that respect what it means to be human.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Munjed M. Murad