Mustafa Akyol: Rational Islam and Reopening Muslim Minds
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- In this video I have the pleasure of talking to journalist and Muslim public intellectual Mustafa Akyol. Mustafa Akyol studied political science and history at Bogazici University. Since the early 2000's, he has been writing regular opinion columns for Turkish publications like Hurriyet Daily News, and recently for the Middle-East focused Al-Monitor.com. Since fall 2013, he is also a regular contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He has published six books in Turkish, including “Rethinking the Kurdish Question: What Went Wrong, What Next?” (2005). His 2011 book, “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty” an argument for Islamic liberalism, was published in the W.W. Norton. In Feb 2017 he published another book, "The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims" was published by St. Martins Press. In January 2017, Mr. Akyol joined The Freedom Project at Wellesley College, based in Massachusetts, USA, as a senior visiting fellow. In June 2018, he joined the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. as a senior fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, to work on the intersection of public policy, Islam, and modernity
We discuss especially, some of Mustafa's ideas in his most recent book "Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance." published in 2021 by St. Martin's Press. We touch on many topics associated with interpreting the Qur'an and contemporary theological debates around contextualizing the Qur'an within the biography of Muhammad.
You can find Mustafa's books, talks, and articles here: www.mustafaakyo...
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Please don't give up with the work you do Dr. Gabriel Said Reynolds. I liked the video and really admire these more progressive ideas in the Muslim world.
U have valid points but do u think all 1,5 billion people think like that…
Prof. Gabriel,
I’m glad you started to open up and reaching out to even more public figures outside of the academia. While we need scholars and academics for the deep knowledge, someone like Mr. Mustafa Aykol here is what the public need as an educator and communicator, as someone who can be a starting point to understand Islam more deeply and intellectually. A first step for the public to be more understanding about Islam.
Thanks for your good work, both of you. God bless!
^ this
Thank you for giving a platform to Mustafa, he's a bright light in Islamic thought
One question what do you think we muslims need to do in the modern era to preserve the spirit of islam while reclaiming our identity as muslims
Appreciate such discussions which create understanding between people from various religion backgrounds. May I also add that I am from Kashmir and reading Mustafa Akyol's book tutled:
"Reopening Muslim Minds."
Wow to Dr. Gabriel to his perfect pronunciation and knowledge of surahs …
I hope Prof Gabriel brings on people like Wael Hallaq and Timothy winter.
Salam Mr. Mustafa Akyol. It was the first that I watched your video and listen to your views about Muslims fighting Muslims.
I like your program. You ask each of us why Muslims are fighting Muslims, and you suggest that we should change this question rather we should ask( WHO IS DOING THIS TO US? MAKING US FIGHT EACH OTHER ) The common answer to our question is, that outsiders are making us fight each other and that may be the Zionists, the American, the British, or the Western powers are causing the Muslim nation to kill each other.
Sir, I'm from Iraq; I know the Arabic language and the classical Guranink language too. I'm very versed in the history of Iraq, from the past 7000 years until today. I'm knowledgeable of Islamic History. I know the history of the first Islamic establishment in Baghdad as their Capital. I know when Abasseen came to Iraq about 611 Ad or about. I know all that needs to know of the Islamic Empire. I know of the Ottoman Empire and its history until this day.
May I please elaborate on your question and your suggestion?
Sir, you may be right in suggesting that a foreign power is making the Muslim countries kill and attack each other.
But--the answer is within you--------I think the evil that makes the Muslim nations kill each other is Islam itself.
When Prophet Mohammad spread his Islamic faith to the Arab villagers, he did not do it in a peaceful way. . He spread his Islamic faith by the power of SWOR. He killed, invaded, forced others, took their goods by force, and demanded to kill in the name of God and in the of his Islamic faith. After the death of Mohammad, Islam became the most powerful force. When the Muslim Empire was a powerful force, it invaded all of the Middle East, Persia, and Turkey all the way to Spain and consolized Spain for five hundred years. When Baghdad became the capital of the Islamic nation, Arabs were still killing each other. After the death of Mohammad, his family killed each other for power control; that is why Sheeaa and Sinna, and the Alaween still kill each other for power.
The Arabs and the Muslim world were killing each other then, and now. Nothing has changed. Actually, they do not need a foreign n power for them to keep the old habits of killing and invading each other going...
May I remind you that during the Islamic Empire, there were no Zoinest, American, British, or Western powers?
One may ask, then why were they killing each other? Especially If there was no interference from the foreign power.
And, let us go further into the Islamic regime your country Turkey became the most powerful Ottoman Empire, and the Turks appointed themselves the keeper and the protector of the Islamic nations. Your government controlled all of Arabia and invaded most of Europe, forcing and converting other people of faiths to adopt the Islamic faith.
May I remind you that your government took all the minerals the wealth of the Muslim countries without offering any improvements to their educational system or to the infrastructure, and then there was no America, Britain, Zoinest to make you take over the other Muslim countries?
The Muslim nations must face the facts and the truth; they have been killing each other before Islam and during the expansion of the Islamic faith until this day.
The problem is with the foundation of Islam; when you get rid of the foundation, maybe then you can have some peace and unity.
The Islamic nations always blame others for their Chaise and for invading one another. A good example in our time is Iraq invading Kuwait and Saudi invading Yaman.
America, Britain, Zionist, and the Western world were not in existence, and they did not have power during the Islamic Empire,
Muslims still would kill each other because it is in their nature, it is in the Islamic faith.
Sir, you said, let us ask questions and find a solution to our problem;
Well, I am giving you the truthful answer to your puzzle, Muslims are killing Muslims
I don't mean to be disrespectful to any Muslim or the Islamic faith, but you are the one who raised the question, and I'm giving it to you as I see it.
Sir. Israel was established about 74 years ago. They started from nothing on the land, no homes, no streets, no hospitals, no railroads, no transportation, no schools, no colleges, no hospitals, and no government in place; they had nothing. In 1948 they started from zero; look at today's Israel; they are a democratic government; they have become advanced in every aspect of life and of a country and government. It has improved in Industry and Medicine, become as go as America and Europe, and has become the most developed country in the Middle East. Why? Because of their faith and unity as one people..
Islam came about 510 Ad; this is about 1500 years; they have been going backward and been killing each other forever. As a matter of fact, If America, Britain, and the Western countries did not extend the hand of help for all of the Muslim nation's improvements, you all would be in the stone age, and some of them still living in the stone age.
The problem with you is Islam itself. Thank you. Wa Alaykoom Al Salam.
Historicity is all well and good. But you have to decide, either the Quran is a historical account of a prophetic movement, or it is scripture. If it is the latter, why is it so obscure as to what is eternal guidance and what is temporary? Couldn't God have done a better job communicating the essential morality etc, without all the confusing (and really irrelevant) details? If in the end it's up to us poor mortals to decide what God meant, to update the interpretations to our times, do we really need this scripture? Is it really guidance?
@@mmss3199 You're missing the point. We're talking about the Quran here, the text/scripture/recitation. Not about a/the monotheistic god, or prophethood.
That is absolutely true. There is this choice here: either the Quran is the “Eternal Word of God” and its laws are true for anyone and in any time- OR the Quran is a created work that is temporary and applies only to some people. There really is no other sane choice here, but failed attempts to reconcile and harmonize what can not be reconciled by reason.
@@MBiernat0711 That discussion is almost as old as islam itself. And still not settled yet. Go figure.
@@AJansenNL when I started to look into Islam - I and realized how theologically unsustainable it is - because of the argument of abrogation and historicity versus unity of Truth and eternity - I was so naively 😆 excited. I thought if I simply present this to a Muslim person and say “look, look, this can not be. The Quran is either eternal or temporal, and you need to make a choice because you can not rationally believe both” - all I got was blank stares and either being called names or just the person withdrawing from conversation. When a person allows themselves to use reason freely- Islam is first to go, of any religious thought. There is truth in Islam and there is error, but they need to be distinguished clearly and without fear. If something is true- it belongs to God. And what is of God, IS eternal. Nothing ever will threaten it.
That is a very good question well expected , and the only answer possible from this modern reading of the mutazili theology is that once Islam is known to be from God through rational ,kalam and Quranic evidence then the mutazili rational superiority doctrine along with universal ethics based interpretation of the texts will be the interpretative tool used to hold texts with less diverse interpretation suitable for time and place and by this theology ,that is what God wants the texts to be interpreted and that is the test in the world . To see who uses their rationality and moral ethics to intrepret the word of God.
I would like to say thank you so much Mustafa The only Revelation Allaah sent to Human being it's QURAN ❤❤
The quran says that all books and prophets PBUT of Allah swt are universal
Hey Gabriel...
Your guest is lying .
He's trying to correct the poor writing of his lord. Cut him some slack.
Great job BUT much better to hone in on the use Nasara as a direct translation to Christian all these millenia. You must know this is an inaccurate translation, a false appreciation and I have confidence a very large percentage of Muslim scholars will agree with this. And same for how Jews of today are characterized in the quran. The quran if filled with ignorant accusations against the majority of Christians and Jews and not just today but from the time the quran came about. This requires rectification al haste.
Majority of Muslim scholars?
A man, named Ady ibn Hatim, may Allah be pleased with him, met the Prophet, peace be upon him, prior to accepting Islam. He was Nasrani at the time (i.e. an aid to the Christ, peace be upon him). He said to the Prophet, "we do not worship our schoalrs and monks." The Prophet, peace be upon him, response was, "don't you make permissible what they make permissible even if Allah made impermissible? And don't you make impermissible what they made impermissible, even if Allah made permissible?"
He said, "yes".
He said, "that is their worship". (That what it means thst you worship them).
If that kind of misinterpretation you mean, then I think it is YOU who lack understanding.
@@andypendant4901 You missed my point entirely. Firstly, no Christian today worships monks and the holds true back then. That the Quran systematically uses an awkward name and stumbles foolishly when describing Christian beliefs beings clarity that either the Quran is talking about a small Christian sect and hence Nasara shouldnt be translated as Christian, or the Quran is again talking gibberish. From immoral ideals to geographical, historical, mathematical, scientific and theological errors, there is no surprise. But earlier today, the Holy Humanist channel had a guest and much insight is certainly forthcoming to fill in the holes and gaps.
@@mmss3199 And yet Quran isn't able to point out a single error.
@@madgergillard2652 yes because the writers of the Quran describe particular Christianity or various forms of “Christianities” that were relevant to the 7th century northern Arabia (where the Quran was put together) and which are obscure to today’s world. So to understand the Quran, we need to study the late antiquity Christianities together with the messianic movements of that time, and also what we today call “heretical” forms of Christianity
@@madgergillard2652 your christianity(trinity) is middle and neo-platonism(PAGANISM) islam and orthodox judiasm are the only monotheist religion. Shalom aleichem/Salaam alaikum from a former Ethiopian orthodox christian(the second nation to accept christianity as a state religion in 330AD)
Your guest is lying since (1) the translation of Muhsin Khan and Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and that of Abdul Haleem both give the correct translation of the ayah without interjections. (2) all major scholars in hadith science have been critical (with varying degrees) and have stated why they take certain hadiths as authentic or otherwise. The case of Abu Hanifah, as explained by his contemporaries, was that some of the hadith texts that come from Madinh start at the size of the "palm" and reach to Iraq the size of an "arm". This is why he rejected some hadith.
There is this ayah that many people ignor. Which is
{ فَتَعَـٰلَى ٱللَّهُ ٱلۡمَلِكُ ٱلۡحَقُّۗ وَلَا تَعۡجَلۡ بِٱلۡقُرۡءَانِ مِن قَبۡلِ أَن یُقۡضَىٰۤ إِلَیۡكَ وَحۡیُهُۥۖ وَقُل رَّبِّ زِدۡنِی عِلۡمࣰا }
[سُورَةُ طه: ١١٤]
Then High above all be Allah, the True King. And be not in haste (O Muhammad SAW) with the Quran before its revelation is completed to you, and say: "My Lord! Increase me in knowledge."
I think you lack the ability (and will) to read Qura'an in a complimentary manner. But selective, deceptive, and incomprehensive
To increase knowledge does not mean contradiction. That is why any idea of “abrogation” as valid in reaching truth (“increasing knowledge”) is nonsense. To use abrogation in a meaningful way is to say that God’s Truth can be altered, and His Word contradicted. That is how we know that the Quran is NOT the Word of God. Because God is not insane.
@memories2019ss hi Memories :)
@@MBiernat0711 islam and orthodox judiasm are the only true abrahamic religion that is not defiled by anthropomorphism unlike christianity, let that sink in!
@@bruckbedru8178 Islam and Orthodox Judaism very much worship anthropomorphic deities - Yehova riding the clouds coming to Egypt in the Jewish tradition- siting on a throne in the Islamic (was probably tired of killing people, had to rest, poor little Yehova-Allah). Let that sink in :) . Sorry for the late response, I just saw your comment
@Ali hey, that WOULD be a mess if either Yehova or Allah were God and not figments of religious imagination :)
Faith is a personal criterion/ premise. God can not be proved nor disproved, but people have tendencies to believe in a deity (or deities) or solemnly reject their existence.
Either belief is valid in its own right.
ASTAGFIRULLAH
What for ?