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A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making
an argument for an 'Islamic Enlightenment' today. In Reopening
Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol frankly diagnoses 'the crisis of Islam'
in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into
Islamic theology, and sharing lessons from his own life story, he
reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great
civilization in their earlier centuries - and what the cost has
been. He highlights how values often associated with Western
Enlightenment - freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of
science - had Islamic counterparts, which tragically were cast
aside in favour of more dogmatic views, often for political
reasons. Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and
storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from
medieval Muslim thinkers to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range
of burning issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of
speech, and freedom of religion. By rereading the Qur'an,
revisiting the Sharia, and 'dismantling the theological roadblock'
that disallows such questioning, Akyol shows the path to a renewal
in Islam.
A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making
an argument for an Islamic Enlightenment today In Reopening Muslim
Minds, Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and
opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses "the crisis
of Islam" in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving
deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own
life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made
them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially
demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment
-- freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science --
had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of
more dogmatic views, often for political ends. Elucidating complex
ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds
borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers such as Ibn
Rushd (aka Averroes), to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of
sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of
religion, or freedom from religion. While frankly acknowledging the
problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and
hopeful vision for its future.
The recent news from Afghanistan, where the Taliban seized power
once again to rule in the name of God, brings to mind a broader
trouble: Islam, the second-largest religion in the world, has some
harsh interpretations that defy human freedom--by imposing
religious practices, discriminating against women or minorities, or
executing "apostates" or "blasphemers. In Why, as a Muslim, I
Defend Liberty, Cato Institute senior fellow Mustafa Akyol offers a
bold critique of this trouble by frankly acknowledging its roots in
the religious tradition, while also presenting counterarguments.
Akyol argues that liberty is compatible with Islam if it is
understood as a voluntary faith and not a coercive system, as many
Muslims already see it. However, other Muslims understand Islam,
indeed, as a coercive system that sees no difference between what
is religiously right and legally enforceable. Moreover, these
coercive Muslims' beliefs are not groundless: they rely on
traditional interpretations of the Sharia (Islamic law). Yet the
two fundamental sources of the Sharia--the Quran and the Prophetic
example--also include seeds of freedom, Akyol argues. He explores
little-noticed grounds for human rights, toleration and rule of law
in the Quran, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and the complex
history of the Islamic civilization. It is past time, he argues, to
grow those seeds into maturity and to reinterpret Islamic law and
politics under the Quranic maxim, "No compulsion in religion."In
short chapters, Akyol digs into big questions: Why do Muslims need
to reform the Sharia? Is there something to revive in the Sharia?
Should Muslims really glorify conquest and supremacy, or instead,
believe in the social contract? Is capitalism really alien to
Islam, which has a rich heritage of free markets and civil society?
Finally, he addresses a suspicion common among Muslims today: What
if liberty is a mere cover used by Western powers to advance their
imperialist schemes?With personal stories, historical anecdotes,
and theological insights, this is the little big book on the
intersection of Islam and liberty.
As the Arab Spring threatens to give way to authoritarianism in
Egypt and reports from Afghanistan detail widespread violence
against U.S. troops and women, news from the Muslim world raises
the question: Is Islam incompatible with freedom? In Islam without
Extremes, Turkish columnist Mustafa Akyol answers this question by
revealing the little-understood roots of political Islam, which
originally included both rationalist, flexible strains and more
dogmatic, rigid ones. Though the rigid traditionalists won out,
Akyol points to a flourishing of liberalism in the
nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and the unique "Islamo-liberal
synthesis" in present-day Turkey. As he powerfully asserts, only by
accepting a secular state can Islamic societies thrive. Islam
without Extremes offers a desperately needed intellectual basis for
the reconcilability of Islam and liberty.
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Jews and the Qur'an (Hardcover)
Meir M. Bar-Asher; Foreword by Mustafa Akyol; Translated by Ethan Rundell
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A compelling book that casts the Qur'anic encounter with Jews in an
entirely new light In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir
Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an
and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those
passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide
Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia. He traces the Qur'anic
origins of the protection of Jews and other minorities living under
the rule of Islam, and shows how attitudes toward Jews in Shi'i
Islam are substantially different from those in Sunni Islam.
Bar-Asher sheds light on the extraordinary contribution of Jewish
tradition to the Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an, and draws important
parallels between Jewish religious law, or halakha, and shari'a
law. An illuminating work on a topic of vital relevance today, Jews
and the Qur'an offers a nuanced understanding of Islam's engagement
with Judaism in the time of Muhammad and his followers, and serves
as a needed corrective to common misperceptions about Islam.
When Reza Aslan's bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was
criticism that he hadn't addressed his Muslim faith while writing
the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New
York Times wrote that "if Aslan had actually written in defense of
the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something
provocative and new." Mustafa Akyol's The Islamic Jesus is that
book. The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in
the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of
Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians - the Jewish
followers of Jesus - saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a
prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and
good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later
emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of
Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged
in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam. Akyol exposes this
extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish
Christianity and Islam - a major mystery unexplored by academia.
From Jesus' Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the
Qu'ran's stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal
links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also
call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they
are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.
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.
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