Mustafa Akyol writes a bi-weekly column for Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest English language daily. Read his recent HDN pieces here, on the paper’s website, with reader’s comments. For older HDN by Akyol pieces, go here.
Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case For Liberty
✪ Islam without Extremes has been longlisted for the 2012 Lionel Gelber Prize
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“From furious reactions to the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad to the suppression of women, news from the Muslim world begs the question: is Islam incompatible with freedom? With an eye sympathetic to Western liberalism and Islamic theology, Mustafa Akyol traces the ideological and historical roots of political Islam. The years following Muhammad’s passing in 632 AD saw an intellectual “war of ideas” rage between rationalist, flexible schools of Islam and the more dogmatic, rigid ones. The traditionalist school won out, fostering perceptions of Islam as antithetical to modernity.
However, through his careful reexamination of the currents of Muslim thought, Akyol discovers a flourishing of liberalism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the unique “Islamo-liberal synthesis” of present-day Turkey. Only by accepting a secular state, he powerfully asserts, can Islamic societies thrive. Persuasive and inspiring, Islam Without Extremes offers a desperately needed intellectual basis for the reconcilability of Islam and religious, political, economic, and social freedoms.” — Publisher (W.W. Norton)
Watch Mustafa Akyol at TED, arguing for “Islamic liberalism.”
Muslims Are Not Betraying Islam In Embracing Liberal Democracy
Last week, during a book tour in London, I spoke to a large group of British Muslims on Islam and liberty. A few of the questions that I received from the audience indicated why discussion on this topic is much needed. “If the state gives the people the freedom to do what they want, then they will follow their temptations,” said one Pakistani gentleman. “That’s why the Saudi religious police, which you oppose, is a very good system.”
✪ Book Tour In The UK (Nov 22-26)
Public events in London and Warwick… Continue reading »
Muslims vs. Cartoons: What To Do Against Blasphemy?
[Originally published in Huffington Post]
Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine, recently became much more famous than it ever was. Early this month, it came out with a provocative issue whose cover presented a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, and the headline, “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.” Shortly afterwards, the offices of the magazine were firebombed, and its website got hacked.
The Qur’an, The Bible, And The Urge To Violence
[Originally published in Contending Modernities]
Philip Jenkins’ September 2011 piece, “9/11: Did the Qur’an really make them do it?,” was an eye-opener on the touchy issue of religion and violence. For me it was also a reminder of an anti-Semitic piece of propaganda I found in an Istanbul bookstore years ago.
Muslims Need Liberalism, Not Just Democracy
[Published in The Daily]
Since 9/11, much ink has been spilled on the troubles of the world of Islam. The problem was painfully obvious: There were only a few functioning democracies in the Muslim world, and simply none among the Arabs. Some even presumed a fundamental contradiction between Islam and democracy. Islam, they argued, could only produce dictatorial regimes.
But there was a serious flaw in this argument. Most of the Middle Eastern dictators — Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Bashar al-Assad of Syria — were secular, not Islamic, figures. In fact, the Islamic groups in these countries, such as the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and its various franchises, were often brutally suppressed by the secular autocrats in question.
Egypt’s ‘AKP’ On Its Way?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
There was an interesting headline in this weekend’s papers. Khalid al-Zafarani, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told the Associated Press that he and some of his colleagues were working to found “a political party with the same program of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP].” They would copy not just the policies, but also the very name of the Turkey’s AKP, Mr. al-Zafarani explained in Cairo, since they were inspired by the party’s achievements.
Turkey’s Secularists Had Better Remain Delusional
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
You might have been following the events in Syria. In a nutshell, the country’s corrupt, dictatorial and brutal regime has killed more than 2,000 unarmed protestors in the past six months. And it seems willing to kill more and more.
So, Who Will Protect Secularism Now?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
The question in my headline is asked by many these days, especially in light of the gradual decline of the Turkish military as an intruder into Turkish politics. But the question itself is questionable, for it seems to overlook a few crucial facts. Continue reading »
A Quest For The Historical Atatürk
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News, with reader's comments]
When a lonely shepherd guided his flock out to pasture near the village called Yukarı Gündeş in eastern Turkey, in 1997, he committed a “highly disrespectful [act], an act of treason,” according to a Turkish parliamentarian. For this parliamentarian, along with thousands of other Turks, were present in that middle-of-nowhere place to witness a miracle: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s silhouette, they believed, was miraculously falling on a hill and creating a magical scene which the reckless shepherd and his clueless sheep inadvertently disrupted.
How ‘Christian’ Is Breivik?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
“I prayed to God,” wrote Anders Behring Breivik, in his 1,500-page manifesto, to “ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail.” Soon, he went on his terrorist mission, which ended with the ruthless murder of more than 70 innocent souls.
Not All Terrorists Are Muslim, Apparently
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
A silly motto has developed in the West in the past decade. “Not all Muslims are terrorists, of course,” people would utter it, smilingly, only to add; “but all terrorists are Muslims.” Yet now, the monstrous violence committed by Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed more than 70 of his innocent countrymen, clearly debunks that rhetoric.
The Forgotten Liberalism Within Islam
[Originally published in Huffington Post]
Today, in most minds, the words “liberalism” and “Islam” can come together only to form an oxymoron. However, this was not the case a century ago. The Islamic world was still much less open and democratic then the West, but most intellectuals and statesmen of that world were self-declared liberals.
My Muslim Case For Liberty
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' commments]
Over the years, in this very column, I have tried to advance a political philosophy that can be called “Muslim liberalism.” It is, in a nutshell, a liberal view of politics and economics within an Islamic theological framework. It has been the basic filter through which I looked at religious issues, and even some of the Turkish affairs, which I saw as case studies for the broader questions regarding the future of the Muslim world.
‘Erdoğan, Turkey, Muslim!’
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
Last week, Turkey’s visionary foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, visited Benghazi, the stronghold of the Libyan opposition. Crowds were waiting for him at Tahrir Square, which was quite very reminiscent of its more famous namesake in Cairo. When Davutoğlu merged into the crowd with a smile and a hand in the air, he was welcomed with two interesting slogans. “Thank you, Turkey,” people began to chant, adding, “Erdoğan, Turkey, Muslim!”
‘No Victor But God’
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a notable speech at the first gathering of his “party group” in Parliament. Speaking to more than three hundred deputies who were just elected in a very victorious election, he warned them against arrogance. “We received trust from our nation,” he said, referring to political power. “We will carry it modestly and will give it back when the time comes.” His Justice and Development Party, the AKP, in other words, was in power only for a limited time, and had to use it humbly.
Islam Will Find Its Own Way to Freedom
[Originally published in Public Discourse]
Predicting history is always a tough, if not risky, business. Hence to a big question such as “How do you think the Middle East will be a decade from now?”, my answer would normally be, “Well, we will see.” And yet I am tempted to agree with Michael Novak’s “not-so-bold prediction” that we will see a much freer and more democratic Muslim Middle East by the year 2020. Let me explain why.
Lecture Tour in the US on ‘Islam and Liberty’
LA, Seattle, Stanford, DC. Watch the talk at the Heritage Foundation here »
Continue reading »
Posted on October 3rd, 2011 in News & Comments | 1 Response »