Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty

Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393081974
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
“A delightfully original take on…the prospects for liberal democracy in the broader Islamic Middle East.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal 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.

Reopening Muslim Minds

Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250256070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
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 Islamic Jesus

Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250088704
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York Times 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.

Why, as a Muslim, I Defend Liberty

Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1952223180
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Islam, the second largest religion in the world, has several authoritarian interpretations today that defy human freedom—by executing “apostates” or “blasphemers,” imposing religious practices, or discriminating against women or minorities. In Why, as a Muslim, I Support Liberty, Mustafa Akyol offers a bold critique of this trouble, by frankly acknowledging its roots in the religious tradition. But Akyol also shows that Islam has “seeds of freedom” as well—in the Qur'an, 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 reinterpret Islamic law and politics under the Qur'anic maxim, “No compulsion in religion.” Akyol shows that the major reinterpretation Islam needs now is similar to the transformation that began in Western Christianity back in the 17th century, with the groundbreaking ideas of classical liberal thinkers such as John Locke. The author goes back and forth between classical liberalism and the Islamic tradition, to excavate little-noticed parallels, first highlighted by the “Islamic liberals” of the late Ottoman Empire, unknown to many Muslims and non-Muslims today. In short chapters, Akyol digs into big questions. Why do Muslims need to “reform” the Sharia? But is there something to “revive” in the Sharia as well? Should Muslims really glorify “conquest,” or rather believe in 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, theological insights, and a very accessible prose, this is the little big book on the intersection of Islam and liberty.

My Isl@m

Author: Amir Ahmad Nasr
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250016487
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
Amir Ahmad Nasr is a young Muslim man with something explosive in his hands: a computer connected to the Internet. And it has the power to help ignite a revolution and blow apart the structures of ignorance and politicized indoctrination that too often still imprison the Muslim mind. Part memoir, part passionate call for liberty, reason and doing work that matters, My Isl@m tells the tale of how the internet opened the eyes and heart of a once fearful young Muslim to a world beyond the dogmatism of his upbringing, and recounts his transformation into a defiant digital activist. In his honest, provocative, and courageous debut, Nasr–a popular Afro-Arab Sudanese blogger–steps out from behind the curtain of anonymity and emerges as a voice of a new generation of tech-savvy liberal Muslims. Set in war-ravaged Sudan, oil-rich Qatar, multi-cultural Malaysia, the United States, Turkey and the new frontiers of cyberspace, My Isl@m is a fascinating prelude to the Arab Spring and a disarming and uplifting tale of doubt, soul-searching, Islam, and finding freedom in the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world. A poignant, honest, and uplifting memoir of how blogging and the internet opened the eyes and heart of one young Muslim man to a world beyond his religious fundamentalist upbringing.

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty

Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393070866
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
A provocative manifesto for an interpretation of Islam that synthesizes liberal ideas and respect for the Islamic tradition. 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.

The Way of the Strangers

Author: Graeme Wood (Journalist)
Publisher:
ISBN: 0812988752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
"The Way of the Strangers is an intimate journey into the minds of the Islamic State's true believers. From the streets of Cairo to the mosques of London, Wood interviews supporters, recruiters, and sympathizers of the group...Wood speaks with non-Islamic State Muslim scholars and jihadists, and explores the group's idiosyncratic, coherent approach to Islam...Through character study and analysis, Wood provides a clear-eyed look at a movement that has inspired so many people to abandon or uproot their families.

Apocalypse in Islam

Author: Jean-Pierre Filiu
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520264312
Category : Islam and politics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
This is an eye-opening exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim countries that the end of the world is at hand. Jean-Pierre Filiu uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries, and highlights its extraordinary resurgence in recent decades.

What Is Moderate Islam?

Author: Richard L. Benkin
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498537421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Radical Islam is a major affliction of the contemporary world. Each year, radical Islamists carry out terrorist attacks that result in a massive death toll, almost all involving noncombatants and innocents. Estimates of how many Muslims could be considered followers of radical Islam vary widely, and there are few guides to help determine moderates versus radicals. Observers often sit at the extremes, either seeing all Muslims as open or closeted jihadis or recoiling from any attempt to link Islam with international terror. Both positions are overly simplistic, and the lack of rational principles to absolve the innocent and identify the accomplices of terror has led to governments and individuals mistakenly accepting jihadis as moderate. What is Moderate Islam? brings together an array of scholars—Muslims and non-Muslims—to provide this missing insight. This wide-ranging collection examines the relationship among Islam, civil society, and the state. The contributors—including both Muslims and non-Muslims—investigate how radical Islamists can be distinguished from moderate Muslims, analyze the potential for moderate Islamic governance, and challenge monolithic conceptions of Islam.

Islam

Author: Bernard Ellis Lewis
Publisher: Pearson Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0132716062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
Praise for Bernard Lewis "For newcomers to the subject[el]Bernard Lewis is the man." TIME Magazine “The doyen of Middle Eastern studies." The New York Times “No one writes about Muslim history with greater authority, or intelligence, or literary charm.” British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper “Bernard Lewis has no living rival in his field.” Al Ahram, Cairo (the most influential Arab world newspaper) "When it comes to Islamic studies, Bernard Lewis is the father of us all. With brilliance, integrity, and extraordinary mastery of languages and sources, he has led the way for[el]investigators seeking to understand the Muslim world." National Review "Bernard Lewis combines profound depth of scholarship with encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East and, above all, readability." Daily Telegraph (London) "Lewis speaks with authority in prose marked by lucidity, elegance, wit and force." Newsday (New York) "Lewis' style is lucid, his approach, objective." Philadelphia Inquirer "Lewis writes with unsurpassed erudition and grace." Washington Times An objective, easy-to-read introduction to Islam by Bernard Lewis, one of the West’s leading experts on Islam For many people, Islam remains a mystery. Here Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill examine Islam: what its adherents believe and how their religion has shaped them, their rich and diverse cultures, and their politics over more than 14 centuries. Considered one of the West’s leading experts on Islam, Lewis, with Churchill, has written an illuminating introduction for those who want to understand the faith and the global challenges it confronts and presents. Whatever your political, personal, or religious views, this book will help you understand Islam’s reality. Lewis and Churchill answer questions such as... • How does Islam differ from Judaism and Christianity? • What are the pillars of the Islamic faith? • What does Islam really say about peace and jihad? • How does the faith regard non-Muslims? • What are the differences between Sunni and Shi’a? • What does Islam teach about the position of women in society? • What does Islam say about free enterprise and profit? • What caused the rise of radical Islam? • What are the problems facing Muslims in the U.S. and Europe and what are the challenges posed by those minorities?