Hamza Yusuf - Medina and Athena: Restoring a Lost Legacy

About this lecture

In this lecture, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf explores the historical and philosophical relationship between the Islamic intellectual tradition and ancient Greek thought — symbolized by "Medina and Athena" — tracing how the liberal arts, logic, rhetoric, and the trivium and quadrivium flourished in early Muslim civilization before gradually receding, and why their restoration is urgent for Muslims navigating the crises of modernity. Drawing on figures from al-Ghazali and Ibn Sina to George Makdisi and Cardinal Newman, he argues that Zaytuna College's mission to revive classical Islamic learning is inseparable from recovering the shared heritage of reasoned inquiry that once united Muslim and Western scholastic traditions. The lecture also features remarks from Father Chris Renz and Dr. Omar Qureshi introducing a pioneering collaboration between Zaytuna College and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology called The Common Heritage Series.