Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393347241)

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.

Author: Mustafa Akyol
ISBN-10: 0393347249
ISBN-13: 9780393347241
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 11/04/2013
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.50w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/01/2014