Renovatio 3: The Art of Being Human

Spring 2018: The Art of Being Human

The nature of man, his difference from the animals, and his relation to the divine are topics that have preoccupied philosophers and theologians from ancient times. The Islamic tradition, like the Jewish and Christian traditions, holds that human beings are created in the metaphysical image of God. But modern society has discovered much to undermine man’s proud claim to distinctiveness through reason. 

This issue of Renovatio asks what now remains that makes us distinctively human. Is it the stories we tell, our concern for an ethical life, or, even, the ensoulment of the human embryo? 

Contributors include:

Umar Faruq Abd-Allah

Eva Brann

Scott F. Crider

Anna Julia Cooper

Claus Dierksmeier

David Bentley Hart

Chris Hedges

Roger Scruton

Zaid Shakir

Sophia Vasalou

Hamza Yusuf

Cyrus Ali Zargar

Select Contents:

The Human in the Qur'an 

by Zaid Shakir

Humane Being: Learning to be Human

by Umar Faruq Abd-Allah 

Other People's Truths

by Eva Brann

When Does a Human Fetus Become Human?

by Hamza Yusuf

Sacred Truths in a Profane World

by Roger Scruton