Islam without Extremes
A Muslim Case for Liberty
Published on 11. July 2011
368 pages
978-0-393-08197-8 (ISBN)
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.More details
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Person
Mustafa Akyol lives in Istanbul and is a columnist for the Turkish newspapers Hürriyet Daily News and Star. He has written opinion pieces for the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Maps
- Glossary
- Introduction
- Part I: The Beginnings
- 1 A Light unto Tribes
- 2 The Enlightenment of the Orient
- 3 The Medieval War of Ideas (I)
- 4 The Medieval War of Ideas (II)
- 5 The Desert Beneath the Iceberg
- Part II: The Modern Era
- 6 The Ottoman Revival
- 7 Romans, Herodians, and Zealots
- 8 The Turkish March to Islamic Liberalism
- Part III: Signposts on the Liberal Road
- 9 Freedom from the State
- 10 Freedom to Sin
- 11 Freedom from Islam
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
- Praise for Islam without Extremes
- Copyright
