Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty Read Online Free PDF

as their flaws. In the end, I decided to subscribe to none of those groups, but I have learned from the ways of each of them.
    One trait I have developed over the years is an instinctive aversion to tyranny. I had seen it first as the eight-year-old kid behind barbed wire, looking down the barrel of secular guns. But as I studied the Middle East, first in college and then in my job as a journalist, I came to realize that the barrels of Islamic guns are no better. Despots acting in the name of “the nation” or “the state” obviously were terrible—and so were despots acting in the name of God.
    Ultimately, I have become convinced that a fundamental need for the contemporary Muslim world is to embrace liberty—the liberty of individuals and communities, Muslim and non-Muslims, believers and unbelievers, women and men, ideas and opinions, markets and entrepreneurs. Only by doing so can Muslim societies create and advance their own modernity, while also laying the groundwork for the flourishing of God-centered religiosity.
    To explain why this is not as impossible as it might seem to some, I first need to go back fourteen centuries to explore how Islam unfolded in history—and, in the meantime, what happened to liberty.

PART I
The Beginnings
     
The period in which formative developments took place in Islam, and at the end of which Muslim orthodoxy crystallized and emerged, roughly covered a period of two centuries and a half.
    —Fazlur Rahman (1911–1988), Muslim scholar
     

PART II
The Modern Era
     
When there is a general change of circumstances, it is as if the whole creation had changed, and all the world had been transformed.
    —Ibn Khaldun, medieval Muslim scholar
     

PART III
Signposts on the Liberal Road
     
The most important resource in Islamic thought for recognizing religious liberty lies in [its] basic doctrine: the very powerful Islamic insight into the greatness of Allah.
    —Michael Novak, conservative thinker
     

Acknowledgments
    There are many individuals I have to thank for making this book possible—and here are only some of them.
    First, I thank Phillip E. Johnson, who, several years ago, encouraged me to write about Islam in America, despite living thousands of miles away. I also thank Jay Richards and Claire Berlinski for helping me take the first steps, and Walter Russell Mead for opening the way for more. I thank fellow writer Mark Scheel, too, whose gracious friendship not only improved my writing but also enriched my spirit.
    I also thank my agent Jeff Gerecke for all his support, and Maria Guarnaschelli, along with Melanie Tortoroli and Kathy Brandes, for doing a terrific job as my editors at W. W. Norton. They not only corrected my not-so-native language but also made many suggestions and criticisms that made the book much more compelling and articulate. I thank Nuri Tınaz for his help for my research at the ISAM library in Istanbul, and “Kiti” and her mom in Washington, DC, for their support for my research at the Library of Congress.
    I also am thankful to Bruce Chapman, I˙skender Öksüz, Fuat Andıç, Linda Whetstone, Morgaan Sinclair, Alper Bilgili, Ahmet Kuru, and Bilal Sambur, who took the time to read the galleys and made very helpful comments. The support of my father, Taha Akyol, who not only inspired some of the ideas in this book but also helped me articulate them, was particularly invaluable. So was the emotional support of my gracious mother, Tülin Akyol, and my beloved young brother, Ertug˘rul, from whom I expect better works.
    Finally, the highest praise should go for God the Almighty, from whom, I believe, come all our gifts. As we say in the Islamic tradition; it is us who show the effort, it is Him who grants the success.

Index
    Page numbers in italics refer to maps.
Abbasid dynasty, 15, 26, 107–8, 118, 134, 141, 159
apostasy in, 226
Mongol invasion and, 112–13
non-Muslims in, 110–11
reign of al-Rashid in, 108
Traditionist-Rationalist conflict and,