Islam & Muslims
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Friday, November 30th, 2012
✪ Islam Without Extremes was 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)
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Posted in Islam & Muslims | 17 Responses »
Monday, December 12th, 2011
[Originally published in The Guardian]
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.”
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Posted in Islam & Muslims | No Responses »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
[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.
Read more in The Daily ».
Posted in Change within Islam, Islam & Muslims, Suggested Reading | 3 Responses »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
[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.
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Posted in Change within Islam, Islam & Muslims, Unveiling Turkey | No Responses »
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
[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.
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Posted in Fundamentalism (Islamic), Fundamentalism (Secular), Islam & Muslims, Rethinking The West | 3 Responses »
Saturday, July 16th, 2011
[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.
Posted in Change within Islam, Islam & Muslims | 1 Response »
Friday, July 8th, 2011
[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!”
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Posted in Islam & Muslims, Rethinking The East, Unveiling Turkey | 5 Responses »
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
[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.
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Posted in Fundamentalism (Islamic), Fundamentalism (Secular), Islam & Muslims, Unveiling Turkey | 1 Response »
Sunday, July 3rd, 2011
[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.
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Posted in Change within Islam, Faith Matters, Fundamentalism (Islamic), Fundamentalism (Secular), Highly Recommended, Islam & Muslims, Rethinking The East | 1 Response »
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
[Originally published in Bitterlemons.org]
Among the dozens of tweets that I received from fellow Turks following the breaking news of Osama Bin Laden’s death, one was a bit uncommon. While most others expressed relief when confronted with the demise of a man “who brought only trouble to the world”, this particular message rather expressed sympathy for the slain al-Qaeda leader. “He will be remembered as a hero,” it bluntly argued, “a hero who dared to challenge the world’s mightiest imperialists.”
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Posted in Fundamentalism (Islamic), Islam & Muslims | 4 Responses »
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers’ comments]
Most of us who write for this paper are engaged in a unique cross-cultural exercise: We write in a language other than our own, and to readers from societies to which we do not belong. Although I live in Istanbul, Turkey, in the midst of millions of Muslim Turks, for example, my column in these pages are mostly read by English-speaking Westerners.
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Posted in Islam & Muslims | 1 Response »
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers’ comments]
It has been more than two centuries since the Jacobins and sans-Culottes, the bloodiest thugs of the bloody French Revolution, put thousands of clerics to the guillotine. Yet the French zeal against religion has not faded away. This time, however, the target is not the Catholics, who had suffered immensely in the past under the iron fist of a bizarre French principle called laicite. It is rather the Muslims, whose loyalty to their faith clashes with the dictates of a jealous god called “the French Republic.”
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Posted in Islam & Muslims | 1 Response »
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers’ comments]
About a month ago, a group of veiled Turkish women initiated a bold campaign: “No veiled deputy; no vote!” They were calling on political parties, including the incumbent Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to take a revolutionary step in the upcoming elections by offering some candidates who wore the Islamic headscarf. “The gap between Parliament and the society should be filled,” their declaration read, “and this discrimination against veiled women must end.”
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Posted in Change within Islam, Fundamentalism (Secular), Islam & Muslims, Unveiling Turkey | No Responses »
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News, with readers' comments]
I spent a couple of hours writing and reading messages on Twitter last Sunday night. And it turned out to be one of the most educating discussions that I recently had.
The topic was Libya and the air strikes on Gadhafi forces. Right after this operation began, under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, I received an email in Turkish that denounced “this latest imperialist war against Libya.” With a few dozen signatories, the manifesto-like text condemned the NATO, and the West in general, for its “new Crusade” on the North African nation.
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Posted in Islam & Muslims, Rethinking The East, Rethinking The West, Unveiling Turkey | No Responses »
