Reopening Muslim Minds

A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an 'Islamic Enlightenment' today.

In Reopening Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol frankly diagnoses 'the crisis of Islam' in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries - and what the cost has been. He highlights how values often associated with Western Enlightenment - freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science - had Islamic counterparts, which tragically were cast aside in favour of more dogmatic views, often for political reasons.

Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of burning issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. By rereading the Qur'an, revisiting the Sharia, and 'dismantling the theological roadblock' that disallows such questioning, Akyol shows the path to a renewal in Islam.

Auteur

Mustafa Akyol is a regular contributing opinion writer for the New York Times since 2013, covering matters of Islam in the modern world, and was picked in 2021 as one of Prospect's top ten thinkers. His book Islam without Extremes was longlisted for the 2012 Lionel Gelber Prize literary prize, while being banned in Malaysia for challenging the 'religion police.'