REOPENING MUSLIM MINDS

A cogent appeal for an Islamic enlightenment based in Islamic values.

Akyol, author of Islam Without Extremes and The Islamic Jesus, presents a well-prepared argument for “finding Enlightenment values—reason, freedom and tolerance—within the Islamic tradition itself.” The author explains that early Islamic history spawned two broad ethical schools, one of which he characterizes as “ethical objectivism theory,” the other as “divine command theory.” The latter rose to prominence in the form of Ash'arism, a Sunni school of theology that stresses the role of scriptural and clerical authority. Ash’arism, writes Akyol, “won the day not because of its merits, but because of the support of the states that ruled the medieval Muslim world.” The author shows how authoritarian states have dominated Islamic history, using the divine command theory of ethics to uphold their power. According to Akyol, this trend has continued into the modern day, supporting authoritarianism and its attendant lack of freedoms. The author, who has spent much of his career studying and clarifying many aspects of Islam, calls on readers to ponder the early Islamic scholars who championed reason, science, personal liberties, and self-determinism, showing the importance of implementing these values in a modern Islamic enlightenment. Akyol especially highlights the 12th-century philosopher Ibn Rushd, known to the West as Averroes. He also calls on believers to mine the Quran for lessons in peace and personal freedoms that Ash’arism has suppressed through the centuries. “The big remedy we need…is really having ‘no compulsion in religion.’ It is, in other words, giving up coercive power in the name of Islam,” writes the author. “This means no more religious and moral policing, no threats to apostates and ‘innovators,’ no blasphemy laws, no public flogging or stoning, and no violence or intimidation in the family.” An exchange of liberalism for legalism, he maintains, will solve this dilemma.

A clarion call to restore long-diminished traditions in Islamic thought.