Islam without extremes : a Muslim case for liberty /

Islam without extremes : a Muslim case for liberty /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Akyol, Mustafa, 1972- author.
Imprint:	New York ; London : W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Description:	364 pages : maps ; 21 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Islam and state. Secularism -- Islamic countries. Liberty -- Religious aspects -- Islam. Liberalism -- Islamic countries. Islam and state. Liberalism. Liberty -- Religious aspects -- Islam. Secularism. Islamic countries.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10133332

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780393347241 (pbk.) 0393347249 (pbk.)
Notes:	Originally published: 2011. Reprinted with a new epilogue by the author. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	Islam without Extremes presents a provocative manifesto for an interpretation of Islam that synthesises liberal ideas and respect for the Islamic tradition. With an eye sympathetic to Western liberalism and Islamic theology, Mustafa Akyol traces the roots of political Islam. The years following the death of Muhammad saw an intellectual "war of ideas" rage between rationalist, flexible schools of Islam and the more dogmatic, rigid ones. The traditionalists won, fostering perceptions of Islam as antithetical to modernity. However, Akyol traces a flourishing of liberalism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire and explores the unique "Islamo-liberal synthesis" of present-day Turkey. Only by accepting a secular state, he asserts, can Islamic societies thrive. Persuasive and inspiring, Islam without Extremes offers an intellectual basis for the reconcilability of Islam and religious, political, economic and social freedoms.

Description
Summary:	"A delightfully original take on...the prospects for liberal democracy in the broader Islamic Middle East."--Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal <br> <br> 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.
Item Description:	Originally published: 2011. Reprinted with a new epilogue by the author.
Physical Description:	364 pages : maps ; 21 cm
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780393347241 0393347249