About this item
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.
About the Author
Mustafa Akyol is a columnist for Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News, the website Al-Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East, and a monthly opinion writer for The International New York Times.
His articles have also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and many other publications. He studied political science and history at the Bo?aziçi University in Istanbul, where he still lives.
His book, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, an argument for "Muslim liberalism," was published by W.W. Norton in July 2011. The book was long-listed for the 2012 Lioner Gelber Prize literary prize, along with other titles by Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama and Niall Ferguson.
