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November 30, 2006

The Mitre Meets the Turban

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

One of the crucial steps in Pope Benedict XVI's Turkey visit was his meeting with Dr. Ali Bardakoglu, the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey. This institution, a bit like the Church of England, is the state-sponsored official religious body in Turkey. And its head is the supreme Muslim religious authority for the nation.

Dr. Bardakoglu, who is known to be a liberal and progressive theologian, had also been one of the first critics of the pontiff's Regensburg speech, in which he implied that Islam was a religion of the sword. Dr. Bardakoglu had indeed criticized the pope quite straightforwardly, along with his condemnation of the violence that some Muslims had unleashed after the pontiff's controversial speech.

Continue reading "The Mitre Meets the Turban"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:50 PM | Comments (2)

November 28, 2006

Intelligent Design in Turkey: Up-and-coming

A Reuters news story titled " Creation vs. Darwin takes Muslim twist in Turkey " has also noted the advance of ID in this country. It reads:

"Intelligent Design (ID), a more recent argument about life's origins that is championed by U.S. Christian groups, may also be making the leap across the Atlantic. ID says some organisms are too complex to have evolved without some superior cause, but avoids calling that cause God because that would ban it from U.S. science textbooks.

[Mustafa] Akyol, a Muslim believer who says Darwinism is incompatible with his faith, has been waging an uphill struggle to popularize ID here. But most Turks show no interest because they see no need to avoid naming God. His lonely campaign got an unexpected boost last month when Education Minister Huseyin Celik hinted on television that he might want to see it added to Turkish textbooks."If it's wrong to say Darwin's theory should not be in the books because it is in line with atheist propaganda, we can't disregard intelligent design because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation," he told CNN Turk."

Yes, ID is making progress in Turkey — and this is only the beginning!

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)

November 27, 2006

Welcome to Islamdom, Your Holiness

[An open letter to Pope Benedict XVI, originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Your Holiness,

Lord willing, you will be starting your visit to Turkey today. Welcome to Islamdom. I hope you will have a safe, sound and fruitful expedition.

There are some among us who will be protesting your presence, but please be assured that they do not represent all Turks and that many others do not share their unwelcoming attitude. But you know that in every culture radicals tend to be more vocal.

It is not a secret that this unreceptive attitude among Turks — and among other predominantly Muslim nations — started mainly with your Regensburg address last September. Actually it was a very sophisticated critique on the modern schism between reason and faith that has created two distinct but related problems: reason without morals and faith without reason.

Continue reading "Welcome to Islamdom, Your Holiness"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2006

Turkish Students Defend 'Heretic' Professor

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

It is a cold Sunday morning in Istanbul and the streets of the normally hectic Sirkeci are quite silent. In front of the Great Post Office, though, there is action to see: A group of young liberal college students have the masks of a university professor named Atilla Yayla on their faces. Yayla's mouth is gagged but the group speaks out. "We are here to defend Dr. Yayla's freedom of speech," proclaims Soner Tunç, their spokesman, "because his only 'crime' is to think unconventionally."

Later on the liberal activists open a box, put a big roll of black gag in it, and mail it to Dr. Kadri Yamaç, the rector of the Gazi University. "We are sending him this," they explain, "so that he can use it in the future whenever he wants to censor the ideas of the scholars in his university by forcing them to shut up."

Continue reading "Turkish Students Defend 'Heretic' Professor"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 4:50 PM | Comments (1)

November 24, 2006

How Turks See the Pope—Part II

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Among those Turkish nationalists who do not welcome Pope Benedict XVI, the third category would be secular nationalists, who are in line with the anti-EU forces in Turkey's civil and military bureaucracy. They see the whole West as an imperialist enemy dying to carve Turkey into pieces by re-implementing the infamous Treaty of Sevres — a 1920 document that only a handful of non-Turkish historians but the whole Turkish nation remembers. For them Pope Benedict XVI is simply the religious face of "Western imperialism." His effort to consolidate Christianity is interpreted as the preparation for a new Crusade.

Continue reading "How Turks See the Pope—Part II"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

How Turks See the Pope—Part I

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

The upcoming visit by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey is a matter of debate in the country as well as on the international scene. Why is the pope coming? What is his "real agenda"? Should we welcome him or not? These are the questions that Turkish intellectuals — and not-so-intellectuals — have recently been debating.

On one side, there are the usual suspects who suspect and abhor anything and anybody non-Turkish. Simply put, these are the Turkish nationalists. They don't like the pope and they believe that the German former cardinal must be coming here for yet another evil plan to undermine, carve out or even destroy the beloved motherland. That is, after all, what Westerners are for.

Continue reading "How Turks See the Pope—Part I"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2006

No Real Threat to Turkish Secularism

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), the country's leading think-tank, has announced its recent survey titled "Religion, Society and Politics In The Changing Turkey." Carried out by two political scientists from the Bosphorus University, Drs. Binnaz Toprak and Ali Çarkoglu, and based on interviews with 1492 individuals from all around Turkey, the study presents factual insights on one of Turkey's hotly debated issues.

Today many secularists in Turkey fear that religion is becoming a more and more dominant sociopolitical force, especially under the incumbent Justice and Progress (AK) Party. TESEV study suggests that this fear is not very realistic. Results show that religion is indeed flourishing in the Turkish society, but it is also undergoing a process of modernization and liberalization.

Continue reading "No Real Threat to Turkish Secularism"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:31 PM | Comments (1)

November 2, 2006

Nature Probes 'Islam and Science'

Prominent science journal Nature, in its November 2006 issue, has mentioned my work in its cover story on "Islam and Science." It reads:

Some Islamic thinkers are reaching out to the West in surprising ways. The prominent Turkish writer and columnist Mustafa Aykol has creationist views and publishes translations of US proponents of intelligent design. He has been building alliances with US faith-based groups such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington state. In an article for the US National Review last year he wrote: "Intelligent Design can be a bridge between these two civilizations. Muslims are discovering that they share a common cause with believers in the West."

Well, my surname is "Akyol", not "Aykol," I am not a creationist (ID is not creationism), and I haven't published any translations so far, but that's all OK. It is good to see that Nature is taking a note of the universality of the argument from design (for God) and the cross-cultural implications of the modern theory of Intelligent Design.

Continue reading "Nature Probes 'Islam and Science'"

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 5:26 AM | Comments (7)

November 1, 2006

Islamocapitalism in Office: Turkey's AKP

In a Wall Street Journal piece titled "Turkish Tiger: Freedom thrives even under an "Islamist" government," Matthew Kaminski, the editorial page editor of the newspaper, evaluates the flourishing free market economy under Turkey's Muslim-minded government led by the Justice and Development Party (AKP). That's really an interesting phenomenon. At a time when Turkey's die-hard secularist generals declare "global capitalism" as a major threat to the country, the country's devout Muslim politicians are embracing capitalism. AKP's leader and Turkey Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly calls foreigners — including Israeli Jews — to invest in the fast-growing Turkish economy. According to Mr. Kaminski,

To the question of whether Islam hinders development, Mr. Erdogan offers one answer: On the economy this "Islamist" government has stuck to the market playbook. The budget deficit is 1% of GDP, down from 16% in 2001; the debt-to-GDP ratio 60%, compared with 110% five years ago. Inflation is creeping up, to 10%, after hot money fled emerging markets early this summer and the lira fell 22% against the dollar at one point; but Turkey weathered that brief storm well. The Islamists have embarked on the most far-reaching privatization program in Turkish history, selling off telephone companies, petrochemical plants and steel makers and lowering barriers to foreign investment — with little opposition. A vestige of state control, dating back to Ottoman times, is its ownership of large tracts of land, but that, too, is on the agenda.

As mayor of Istanbul, Mr. Erdogan worked closely with and gained the trust of the city's business class. He was also, unusually for a Turkish politician, a businessman himself, having run a food-distribution franchise. He came into office "with a free-enterprise mindset," says Mr. Esgin, who's not otherwise complimentary. "This is the most economically liberal government Turkey has had."

So, if you think that Muslim countries are modernized by their secularists but held back by their faithful, think again. Islam, like any other major religion, works in mysterious ways.

Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:21 AM | Comments (1)