Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty [Hardcover]

It is challenging to write a book based on religion and history with a convincing case relevant to modern time. I think the Turkish Journalist Mustafa Akyol has successfully met this challenge and present an exceedingly compelling and convincing case for Liberal Islam.
I loved the way he described Abu Hanifa the pioneer of the juristic side of the rationalist school, the Mutazilite philosophy and the war of ideas between the Traditionalists and Rationalists throughout the history of Islam.
Akyol highlighted the link between economic prosperity and freedom of religious ideas, illustrating how the School of Tradition cut off the young Islamic community from the economic mainstream. By isolating Muslims from doing trade with nonbelievers, it severly affects every aspect of life from economy to art, language, science and many resources.
He also addresses a particularly tricky issue; "the rise of hadith" and the theory of abrogation in what is described as the "Post Quar'anic ideology". In fact, if anyone wants a medical diagnosis of what went wrong in Islam, then look within some aspects of this ideology, for example, the distaste of some toward "innovation".
Throughout the book, Akyol incorporates lessons from Turkey (Both Ottomans & kemalist). Akyol described the Ottoman Empire as a pluralist state (a description that I struggle to agree with). Yes, the state was tolerant to non-Muslims, but reforms and modernization only took place in the later period of the Ottoman rule. During the early period, the empire was strong and powerful but many of its subject particularly non-Turks were oppressed and lost their national identity without gaining equal rights. Sadly, the process of modernization came a bit late; the seeds of hatred and separatism were already planted in the heart and mind of many Ottomans subjects.
Akyol rightly rejects authoritarian regimes, even in its mild form. The attempt to push religion out of Muslim minds was proven counterproductive, and it failed drastically both in Turkey and Iran. However, Akyol clearly illustrate how the various rulers throughout Islamic history (as early as Umayyads & Abbasids) manipulated religion for their political needs. This basic historical fact should justify a degree of secularism provide it "allows freedom of religion not freedom from religion".
The book also illustrates how kemalism nationalism has helped to destroy the religious identity in Turkey. However, a complete lack of national identity can also be counter-productive. Arab states lost their national identity under Ottomans rule, and they paid a hefty price following the collapse of the empire. The Arabs painfully had to watch colonial powers carving their lands to create new nations (even artificial ones), which had an immense knock on effect that still valid in modern days. It opened the door for nationalist, socialist dictatorship and religious extremism to fell the gap. Nationalism, as well as, secularism (in small doses) are no incompatible with Islam and can be to be within a free liberal democratic society.
The last two chapters "freedom to sin" and "freedom from Islam" are simply delightful. Akyol clearly highlighted the clear distinction in Sharia between the rights of God and the right of people. Also, how the earthly punishment for apostasy is not Qur'anic but post Qur'anic.
His statement " Replacing the fear of God with the fear of state or community could only be an obstacle to heart felt piety" reflect the style and the message of the whole book.
I guess the question is, how to convinces the masses to embrace liberal Islam? How to protect the rationalist school of thoughts from the overzealous of some? How to prevent past mistakes and secure a better future for Muslims? Muslims need to reflect on their past and present and come with answers to these questions. The Arab-spring provides a golden opportunity for Muslims to move on from the shadow of extremism and embark on the road of rationalism as the way for a better future.

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty

I read this book to see if Islam really can be reconciled with a progressive, secular, democratic society and Mustafa Akyol makes a compelling case that it can be. He describes the progressive mutazilite movement from the early days of Islam, and how they developed a concept of a pluralist society with a considerable degree of theological freedom. He goes into some detail about how Islam is developing in Turkey, and argues that a liberal, tolerant and progressive Islam can evolve within a modern secular society. Clearly there's a huge gap between this view of Islam and the rigid traditionalist approach that is mainstream, but with increasing levels of education in the Muslim world and a rediscovery of authentic early forms of the religion, there can be real hope for long term peaceful coexistence between Islam and the rest of the world.

Reading this book helped me see that there actually *is* a rationalist school of thought in the Islam; this school of thought stands over agains the traditionalist school. The former constantly tries to interpret the Quran in light of the current time, whereas the latter tries to stay - in various forms - as true as possible to the Islam that existed during the days of Muhammed. In this book, Akyol not only shows how these separate schools of thought developed, but he also tries to understand why they developed as they did and why the traditionalist school of thought seems to have 'won'.

Secondly, I learned a lot about the development of the Quran and the Haddith, and thus about Islamic culture and religion. At first there was the Quran, the book that was written by Muhammed, and of course there was Muhammed himself. Both sources of information were available to the people of Muhammed's time. Then the Prophet died, which was an unfortunate event. After his death, people tried to make sense of both his teachings and of the Quran, but found that difficult. Then they remembered some of the Prophet's teachings and wrote them down. But, they also came up with new teachings, teachings that weren't Muhammed's, but were fitting for the ideas that people were striving for. To me, this put the whole Hadith in a completely new perspective and showed me that there is not necessarily one way or method in Islamic thinking.

This book taught me that the development of the Islam - and religion in general - has been closely related to the context in which it was founded: the desert of the Middle East. Christianity developed in a context of many small and larger cities of the Roman Empire, whereas Islam developed in the desert and though a bedouin lifestyle. To me - in line with Akyol - this explains a lot of the customs and ideas that can be found in the Quran and in the Haddith.

The fact that economies in the Middle East have been growing for some time now, the fact that a middle class is coming into existence, and the fact that the role and influence of the West (Europe and the USA) in the Middle East is declining, all these developments give me hope for a better, more prosperous and peaceful future. In this book Akyol showed that these developments - and many more, of course - have shaped the development of Islam during the last few centuries in general and Turkey in particular. They help to infuse a sense and feeling of and striving for liberty in people.

And finally the most important lesson of this book, Islam is not a priori incompatible with secular liberal democracies. History has shown that it is possible, albeit not easy, to combine a secular and liberal state with Islam. Moreover, some Islamic theologians believe that there is no argument to be made against a modern form of Islam, one that is compatible with the modern and post-modern society we live in in the West. Hopefully, the revolutions in the Middle East - Egypt, Syria, Tunisia - will help to bring this message of hope, aspiration, imagination and possibility to the fore!