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Mustafa Akyol & David Kelley, PhD
Moderator: Bob Bowdon
Co-Sponsors: International Policy Network, The Smith Family Foundation
Some say that Islam is not compatible with capitalism and that this is part of a wider “clash of civilizations.” But is Islam really incompatible with the key features of capitalism: free markets, investment and trade, the profit motive and pursuit of self-interest? Does it inherently promote collectivisim at the expense of individualism? Is it not open to the values of science, invention, innovation, and progress? Or is it quite compatible with the spirit of individualism, including individual rights, the rule of law, discovery and scientific progress? The answers to these questions will in large part determine whether Muslims can ultimately live peaceably with non-Muslims. So we are delighted to host a discussion of these issues between two learned experts, Mustafa Akyol (Opinion Editor and Columnist, Turkish Daily News, Istanbul) and David Kelley (Founder and Senior Fellow, The Atlas Society, Washington DC)

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 6:30 P.M. Prompt (Free and open to the public)
Donnell Public Library 20 West 53rd Street (Between 5th and 6th avenue), New York

Here is a brief note: The Atlas Foundation is organizing the second Ibn-Khaldoun Essay Contest and I strongly advise young writers to consider joining it. Islamic world needs to focus on the means of creating economic prosperity, and the best medium for that, as Islamic scholar Ibn-Khaldoun argued centuries ago, is based on free markets and limited governments. It is time to rediscover that wisdom and apply to modern realities.

In his piece titled “For Turkey, A Clash of Civilizations” Rod Dreher, editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News, writes the following:

Mustafa Akyol, a 35-year-old Istanbul journalist who often defends the AKP in his column, says the party miscalculated when it tried to criminalize adultery and to create alcohol-free areas in some towns. That gave secularists an excuse to accuse the party of setting off on the slippery slope to Turkey’s Talibanization. “From my point of view, this is just a conservative moral policy which even sometimes I criticize – but this is not the way to sharia,” Mr. Akyol says. “If you can’t negotiate and agree on these things, you push [observant Muslims], and you tell them there is no place for your lifestyle in this country.”

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Michael Gerson, who used to be the speech writer of President Bush, and is currently a fellow at the CFR and a columnist for The Washington Post, has a piece titled, “An Islamic Test for Turkey.” I appear in Mr. Gerson’s remarks as follows:

Secularists accuse the AKP of seeking a slow-motion Islamist revolution. Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol — a young, pro-American moderate conservative with a tendency to quote philosopher Leo Strauss — regards this as a serious overreaction: “The AK Party has traces of Islamism, but it is moving toward becoming a conservative, Muslim democratic party,” more akin to the Christian Democratic parties of Europe. So far, the AKP has been pro-capitalism, pro-European Union and a defender of Islamic family values, instead of being an advocate of Islamic law.

On May 2, I had a piece in the Turkish Daily News titled “The Secularist Hype In Turkey Is A Fact-Free Paranoia.” In his May 14 piece, Fareed Zakaria, the editor and columnist of the Newsweek magazine, agreed with my assessment in his piece which had the web title, “Worries About Turkey Are ‘Fact-Free Paranoia’.” Based on his evaluation of the Turkish political scene, and his interview with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, Dr. Zakaria wrote,

Gul is right. The secular establishment’s suspicions about the AK are best described by Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyul as “fact-free paranoia.

The only thing is that my surname is Akyol, not Akyul. But no problem. I appreciate Dr. Zakaria’s quote and agreement.

Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad published a full-page profile of me, based on an interview by native journalist Camilla Waas. The title reads, “Muslim i jeans til kamp mod mistilliden” which, I have been informed, means “Muslim in jeans fighting against the mutual mistrust.” Well, that sounds accurate — at least I do wear jeans quite often.

The full text is down below, for those who can read Danish. (And if any of those privileged kindly decide to let me know about the content, I will appreciate.)
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Mustafa Akyol will be speaking at two events at the MacLaurin Institute of the University of Minnesota on October 19-20. The first one, “International Journalists’ Forum on Intelligent Design”, will host Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary and Akyol as speakers and will start at 8 pm on October 19. In the second event, Akyol will give a talk on “The Pope and Islam” with a response by Dr. Terry Nichols (Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas), which will start at 2:30 pm on October 20.

For further details, see the MacLaurin Institute website.

Mustafa Akyol will give a talk titled “Is Islam compatible with the market economy?” on July 31, Monday, at London’s International Policy Network (IPN). Those who wish to attend this lunch seminar can contact the IPN here.

Fikret Bila, an op-ed writer for the prominent Turkish national daily, Milliyet, has commended Akyol’s Rethinking The Kurdish Question in his column. “Mustafa Akyol, a young researcher” wrote Bila,

“[has] treated the Kurdish question in a multidimensional way. His research is quite scholarly. The work, which makes use of national and international resources, handles the question in its regional framework. Akyol bases his study on scientific resources and analyzed his findings from a liberal point of view.
Akyol reaches the conclusion that approaches such as autonomy, a federation or independence can

On October 15, 2005, Intelligent Design Network announced that it elected Mustafa Akyol to its Board of Directors. Akyol will be the first and only Muslim member of the board.

Intelligent Design Network is a nonprofit national organization that seeks institutional objectivity in origins science. As its charter explains, “objectivity is necessary because many institutions systematically suppress any objective consideration of that disagreement.”

Phillip E. Johnson — Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley, one of the prominent contemporary Christian thinkers in the US, and the leading figure in the Intelligent Design movement — has written about Mustafa Akyol in his latest Touchstone column. Johnson mentions his friendship with Akyol as an example that can be followed other Christians and Muslims.
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Mustafa Akyol was one of speakers at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee, which was held in Washington DC, between May 2-6, 2005. Speakers of the meeting included President Bill Clinton, Mithal Jamal Hussein Al-Alusi (Founder of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation), Ambassador Dennis Ross, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick (Archbishop of Washington) and James Woolsey (former director of the CIA).

Akyol’s speech is available in audio form at the AJC Annual Meeting web page.

Father John Richard Neuhaus made an extensive quote from Mustafa Akyol’s piece on the American Enterprise magazine, in First Things, the preeminent American journal on religion and public life.

Neuhaus, who is the editor of First Things and one of America’s leading religious intellectuals agrees with Akyol that American culture “should celebrate more than materialism, disbelief, selfishness, and hedonism.”
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Caffe Europa, a widely read Italian magazine, published an interview with Mustafa Akyol in its October 2, 2004 issue. The interview titled “Turkish Islam wil be an antidote to fundamentalism” it available here , yet only in Italian.