A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an "Islamic Enlightenment" today 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. While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.

“A delightfully original take on…the prospects for liberal democracy in the broader Islamic Middle East.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal 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.

“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York Times When Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.” Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book. The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians—the Jewish followers of Jesus—saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam. Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam—a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.

“Mustafa Akyol telah menulis kisah tentang perjalanan intelektual yang membuka wacana dan akan menjadi pusat perhatian teman-teman Muslimnya, serta menimbulkan harapan bagi kita non-Muslim di seluruh dunia.” —Jack Miles, Penulis Buku God: A Bioraphy dan God in the Qur’an, yang Memenangkan Pulitzer Prize “Lebih dari sekadar pembelaan yang berapi-api terhadap toleransi dan nalar, Reopening Muslim Minds membawa pembaca pada perjalanan yang benar-benar menyenangkan dan mencerahkan melalui teologi dan hukum Islam. Dengan kecerdasan dan kefasihan yang brilian, Mustafa Akyol telah menulis sebuah buku yang kehadiran dan kekuatannya tak terbantahkan. Buku ini harus menjadi bacaan wajib bagi setiap pengkaji Islam dan Dunia Muslim secara serius.” —Khaled Abou El Fadl, Profesor Hukum terkemuka Fakultas Hukum UCLA, Penulis Buku Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari'ah in the Modern Age “Buku ini memikat, menarik, dan sangat terpelajar tentang konsekuensi yang ditanggung umat Islam akibat mengesampingkan nalar. Akyol menulis dengan kecerdasan intuitif, empati, cinta, dan harapan.” —Asma Barlas, Profesor Politik Emeritus Ithaca College, Penulis Buku Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an “Bagi Mustafa Akyol, warisan Islam tidak boleh dianggap sebagai sekadar museum yang steril, tetapi sebuah taman hidup yang selalu dan, kapan saja bisa diolah kembali.” —Enes Karic, Profesor Studi Al-Qur’an di Fakultas Studi Islam, Universitas Sarajevo “Pengingat yang tepat waktu dan penuh semangat bahwa nilai-nilai universal seperti toleransi, kebebasan, dan kesetaraan harus digali dari teks-teks dasar Islam.” —Asma Afsaruddin, Profesor Studi Islam di Indiana University, Bloomington, Penulis Buku Contemporary Issues in Islam “Dalam tiga tradisi monoteistik, tarik-menarik antara akal dan wahyu sudah terjadi sejak dulu kala dan diperdebatkan dengan sengit, tidak terkecuali di kalangan Muslim. Kita berutang budi kepada Akyol karena telah menulis sejarah yang membuka mata tentang cendekiawan dan gerakan minoritas dalam Islam yang sejak awal menyerukan penggunaan akal yang lebih besar dalam teologi dan hukum serta mempromosikan pluralisme dan toleransi. Terutama pada era ketika gelombang massa di seluruh dunia tumpah ke jalan-jalan meneriakkan kebebasan dan martabat, inilah bacaan wajib bagi Muslim dan non-Muslim.” —David L. Johnston, Asisten Profesor Studi Islam, Fuller Theological Seminary, Penulis Muslims and Christians Debate Justice and Love “Dalam buku yang jernih dan menawan ini, Akyol menyeru kepada kita akan perlunya reformasi dalam pemikiran Islam. Sebagai seseorang yang meyakini universalitas akal dan kebebasan, secara piawai menghubungkan isu-isu krusial dalam masyarakat Muslim kontemporer dengan akar masa lalunya. Tetapi, bagi Akyol, sejarah bukanlah peristiwa yang berdiri sendiri, melainkan terjadi untuk memberi pelajaran bagi kita. Dan, pelajarannya adalah bahwa tidak akan ada reformasi politik yang signifikan dan lestari di Dunia Muslim tanpa pembaruan teologis yang fundamental.” —Martino Diez, Profesor Bahasa Arab, Catholic University of Milan “Mustafa Akyol secara bersemangat terlibat dalam isu-isu hangat dan kontroversial, dengan argumen yang dibangun berdasarkan beragam ilmu kontemporer tentang Islam. Dia juga memperluas argumennya yang matang dengan memberikan contoh yang mendukung serta cerita yang menarik. Buku ini brilian.” —Mariam Al-Attar, Dosen Sejarah Peradaban Arab dan Filsafat Islam di American University of Sharjah, Uni Emirat Arab, Penulis Islamic Ethics: Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought “Buku ini sangat penting. Akyol berani menghancurkan tabu demi tabu. Ini harus menjadi bacaan wajib bagi semua Muslim dan non-Muslim yang prihatin dengan keadaan Dunia Islam yang menyedihkan saat ini. Saya sangat merekomendasikannya.” —Murat Çizakça, Profesor Sejarah Ekonomi Komparatif dan Keuangan Islam di Marmara University, Istanbul, Penulis Islamic Capitalism and Finance

The book you must read to understand the Islamist crisis—and the threat to us all Robert R. Reilly’s eye-opening book masterfully explains the frightening behavior coming out of the Islamic world. Terrorism, he shows, is only one manifestation of the spiritual pathology of Islamism. Reilly uncovers the root of our contemporary crisis: a pivotal struggle waged within the Muslim world nearly a millennium ago. In a heated battle over the role of reason, the side of irrationality won. The deformed theology that resulted, Reilly reveals, produced the spiritual pathology of Islamism, and a deeply dysfunctional culture. The Closing of the Muslim Mind solves such puzzles as: · Why the Arab world stands near the bottom of every measure of human development · Why scientific inquiry is nearly dead in the Islamic world · Why Spain translates more books in a single year than the entire Arab world has in the past thousand years · Why some people in Saudi Arabia still refuse to believe man has been to the moon

Across the Muslim world today, if anything is self-evident across the Muslim world today it is that the Ummah is badly in need of reform. On this point it can be stated with confidence that Muslims are agreed. Poverty and injustice characterize the face of Muslim lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Pollution and corruption are the order of the day in the societies where the gulf between them and the developed countries of the world has never been wider. Politics in the Muslim world are all too often the politics of deprivation, and culture the culture of despair. “Crisis in the Muslim Mind” examines the intellectual and historical roots of the malaise that has encompassed the Ummah and threatens to efface its identity. Firs published in Arabic in 1991, this important work (in an abridged English translation) is designed to familiarize educated and concerned Muslims with the nature of the crisis confronting them, and to suggest the steps necessary to overcome it.

Explains the attraction of Muslims to their faith, and discusses the challenges contemporary Islam confronts, and how we might imagine an Islamic theology and identity ready to face tomorrow Islam is often associated with and limited to the worst of the world—extremism, obscurantism, misogyny, bigotry. So why would so many people associate with such a fundamentalist faith? Two Billion Caliphs advocates for a way of being Muslim in the world, ready for today and prepared for tomorrow. Unlike stale summaries, which restrict themselves to facts and figures, Haroon Moghul presents a deeply Muslim perspective on the world, providing Islamic answers to universal questions: Who are we? What are we doing here? What happens to us when we die? And from description, Moghul moves to prescription, aspiring to something outrageous and audacious. Two Billion Caliphs describes what Islam has been and what it is, who its heroes are, what its big ideas are, but not only to tell you about the past or the present, but to speak to the future. Two Billion Caliphs finds that Islam was a religion of intimacy, a faith rooted in and reaching for love, and that it could be and should be again. Fulfilling that destiny depends on the efforts of Muslims to reclaim their faith, rebuild their strength, and reimagine their future, on their own terms. Two Billion Caliphs offers Muslim thoughts for the age ahead, to create an interpretation Islam of and for days to come, the kind of religion the world’s Muslims deserve, with echoes of the confident faith Muslims once had. The destiny of Islam, then, is not, as so many prefer to argue, a reformation. It is a counter-reformation. A restoration of what once was.