Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish political commentator and author based in Istanbul, Turkey. (In Turkish “Akyol” literally means “the white path,” hence the name of this website.)
Akyol was born in Ankara in 1972 and had his early education there. Later he graduated from Istanbul Nisantasi British High School and from the International Relations Department of the Bosphorus University. He had his master thesis on the Kurdish question at the History Department of the same university.
Since 2002, he has been a regular commentator in the Turkish media. He is currently a regular columnist for Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey’s foremost English-language daily. He writes a regular column for a Turkish-language daily, Star, as well. He also appears regularly on Turkish TV, on political discussion shows.
He has spoken on many platforms, including the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Mont Pelerin Society, Cato Institute, Acton Institute, Discovery Institute, Mises Institute and many universities around the world . (His talk at TED, Faith Versus Tradition in Islam, was widely acclaimed.)
Over the years, Akyol’s articles have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Newsweek, The American Interest, First Things, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, The American Enterprise Magazine , Huffington Post, National Review Online, The Forward, Tech Central Station, Bitter Lemons and IslamOnline. He has appeared on BBC World, Al Jazeera English, France 24, and other international TV channels.
Mustafa Akyol has a book in Turkish titled Rethinking The Kurdish Question: What Went Wrong? What Next? (Dogan Publishing, 2006), which is a work partly based on his English-language graduate thesis, The Origin of Turkey’s Kurdish Question: An Outcome of the Breakdown of the Ottoman Ancien Régime. He has four other books in Turkish, three of which are collections of his essays.
His latest book, Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case For Liberty, which was defined by the Financial Times as “a forthright and elegant Muslim defence of freedom,” was published by W.W. Norton in July 2011. The book was long-listed for the 2012 Lioner Gelber Prize, along with other titles by Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama and Niall Ferguson.
You can also visit Akyol’s website in Turkish. On Twitter, he is at @AkyolinEnglish.
Some Comments on Mustafa Akyol’s Work
“The [Turkish] secular establishment’s suspicions about the AK are best described by Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol as “fact-free paranoia.” - Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek
“Mustafa Akyol, a bright young columnist for the English-language Turkish Daily News, makes a very convincing case…” - US News & World Report
“Mr Akyol, an advocate of reconciliation between Muslims and the West who is much in demand at conferences on the future of Islam…” - The Economist
“Mustafa Akyol, a writer and columnist sympathetic to, but not uncritical of, the AKP” - Financial Times
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Very interesting talk except for two major historical errors:
1) The Arab world was not “independant” in the 19th and the early 20th centuries. We were under the inhuman yoke of the Ottoman Empire. My two uncles age 23 and 25 were taken to concentration camps in Anatolia. One died there and the other came back home and died from tuberculosis. And by the way I am not Armenian but Christian.
2) Therer was no religious freedom. Christians and Jews had to pay an extra tax on top of all the other abusive taxes.
Please go back and read history books that are not written by your historians
There is no Islam without extremes, these two go hand in hand together. Please read the Islam history and how Mohammed’s followers captures other countries by his order and distory other cultures like persian. Islam foundation is based on extremes, war and killing who does not follow them. Please do me a favor and read the history
What Bahram has said about Islam and other his comments that it is absolutely a dogmatic ignorance and hateness shows. Everybody has thought expression and liberty but nobody has right to slander especially in very sensitive subject. If you never ever read a subject without reading any book that is real problem to communicate with them.
It is a shame that a person has no knowledge but has an ideology.
I am looking forward to read your book ” islam without extremes “, wich, in my view will be an very rich mine of understanding and essential part for building the future. Will you also consider to write an part of the relation of islam and faiths that rise after? For example the case of the bahai faith, or any other that come up in the future …
How will the islam prevent taking an extreme position on this most important topic?
Keep us informed on your progress,
regards,
Mustafa,
Looking forward to reading your new book in the near days. I am sure you will shed new insight on this central issue.
kind regards,
Naava
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Absolute tosh from a so called intellectual. Islam like Christianity is a fairy story and for ‘intelligent’ journalists to use religion to push their political extremism is evil.