Renovatio: The Preservation of Sacred Order

We live in a world of chaos, upended hierarchies, and widespread confusion. In this issue, our writers elucidate the urgency of preserving sacred order in a disorienting age. Many of today's hierarchies may be restrictive and dehumanizing, but, as you'll discover in the pages of our latest issue, order rooted in reason and revelation provides the gifts of freedom and serenity.

Look inside this issue of Renovatio: The Journal of Zaytuna College:

Table of Contents

The Ethical Obligations of the Wealthy

Aristotle’s great man possesses wealth, honor, or both––and avoids foolishness by spending his money with honor and responsibility

John Walbridge

An Ottoman Response to Enforcing Piety

The virtue of piety is praiseworthy in a person, but how far should society go to make it compulsory for all?

Mustafa Akyol

The Spirit In The Science

How a group of Hindu intellectuals challenged the dogma of empiricism.

Ankur Barua

The Stranger in Ithaca: When Odysseus Returns Home

A film adaptation of Homer’s epic offers rare honesty about the shame returning warriors carry with them, which often frays the bonds of family.

Scott F. Crider

“A House is a Machine for Living In”

When progress erases beauty, what happens to our buildings?

Marwa Al-Sabouni

On the Nature of Revolutions

The history of revolutions reveals that while they never reproduced the old regime exactly, each nonetheless exhibited a new domination with a new elite.

Khalid Y. Blankinship

“Persia has become a Holy Land”

What English artists found in their rebellion against industrial Britain.

Juan Cole

“The Fiery Hunt”: Moby-Dick and the Quest for God

Seekers of the transcendent are spurred by a righteous need for transformation
and renewal—but do seeds of fanaticism, not dissimilar to Ahab’s obsession, also lurk within them?

Stephen A. Gregg

Transcending Meritocracy

Can we move from an economic hierarchy to a metaphysical and spiritual one?

Michael Sugich

The Power of Human Speech

We can choose to use our words to dignify—or denigrate—others.

Hina Khalid

We Need a Politics Grounded in Human Nature to Heal Our Divisions

The Islamic notion of the human fiṭrah, or the innate natural disposition toward the good, provides powerful support for a vision of government as a noncoercive
custodian of the common good.

Jacob Williams

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