February 16, 2010
Was Ottoman Shariah Better Than Republican Law?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Well, with a headline like the above, I know that I am on dangerous ground. Shariah, which roughly means Islamic law, is a toxic word for good reasons. Lots of horrific things are happening in our world by those who claim to implement this legal tradition. Shariah-imposing countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia are dictatorships that systematically violate human rights. The latter is especially hellish for its women.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)
February 7, 2010
Could Islam Help Us Against Honor Killings?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Yet another horrible honor killing took place in the southeast, the least developed part of Turkey. A 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives simply for befriending boys. Forensic experts found soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that the poor kid was conscious while being buried into the ground.
May God have mercy on her soul. And may her killers face punishment in this world and the next. What they did was cruel, monstrous and evil.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:01 PM | Comments (1)
January 6, 2010
Should Muslims 'Slay The Mockers of Islam'?
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Alas, it happened again. An extremist Muslim attacked a Westerner to punish him for "mocking Islam." This time, the victim was the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose controversial caricature of the Prophet Mohammed had sparked a worldwide storm five years ago. A 28-year-old man of Somali origin broke into the cartoonist's home last Friday, wielding an axe and a knife. "We will get our revenge," he reportedly yelled, before being shot by the police and taken under custody.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:30 PM | Comments (4)
December 31, 2009
Why Muslim Culture Needs More Fun
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
It happens toward every year's end. The more Westernized part of Turkish society warms up for New Year's Eve. Decorations are put up, parties are organized, and restaurants advertise eat-and-dance-all-night-long programs. Santa Clauses and pine trees show up in upscale malls. The Turks who embrace these Christmas symbols often have no idea about Christ. They just like the lifestyle of the wealthy, happy and joyful people they see in Hollywood movies.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:32 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2009
From the Archives: A Governing Sharia
Yet another belated post: My book review of Islam and The Secular State by Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im. It was published in the December 2008 issue of First Things, a monthly theology magazine.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:04 PM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2009
Not At War With US, Either
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
The boldest headline that President Obama's visit to Turkey gave the world media was a simple reaffirmation. "The U.S is not and will never be," he said, "at war with Islam."
For many Muslims, it was good to hear this because they had really started to suspect that there was a "war on Islam" launched by the American government. In fact, no significant U.S. official had ever said anything close to that. Some of the policies of the Bush administration, from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to "rendition" created doubts and fears. Moreover, some Republican pundits and ideologues, which people perceived as the real mind of the Bush team, engaged in fear mongering about Islam. All these, at the very least, left a bad taste in the mouths of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 8:24 PM | Comments (12)
January 17, 2009
When Both Sides See The Other As Evil
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Since Israel started its brutal onslaught in Gaza, I have been receiving dozens of emails everyday about the nature of the conflict and the parties involved. Most of these fall into two distinct narratives that are 180 degrees opposite.
My Muslim friends are telling me that Israel is "the real terrorist," that its goal is to annihilate or enslave the Palestinian people, and it is responsible for not just the current bloodshed but also the 60-year-old tragedy in the Holy Land. My American or Israeli friends, on the other hand, are telling me the exact opposite. The problem is Arabs, they say, who never accepted Israel's right to exist. Hamas, for them, is responsible for the carnage in Gaza. Israel, they argue, is only defending itself against this fanatic group.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:13 AM | Comments (6)
January 15, 2009
Time For Hamas to Consider Peace
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
I have great sympathy for the Palestinian people. They are my co-religionists with whom I share a common history and culture. Every now and then I recall with nostalgia that the Ottoman Sultans, living in my home city, Istanbul, used to rule Palestine for centuries in a way that made it possible for its people live in peace and security. And I feel deeply sad about what happened to them after we Turks were forced to leave the Holy Land during World War I.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:01 AM | Comments (10)
January 3, 2009
A New Mosque Styled For The New Millennium
[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
Zeynep Fadillioglu is a Turkish designer known for creating some of the most stylish lounges and nightclubs in Istanbul. As a winner of the Andrew Martin International Designer of the Year award, her fame, and that of her husband, restaurateur Meto, has gone beyond Turkey.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 9:41 AM | Comments (2)
November 7, 2008
The Obama Nations
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News]
WASHINGTON - In his recent book, “The Obama Nation,” conservative pundit Jerome Robert Corsi was criticizing the growing popularity of the then Democratic presidential candidate. If he wants to keep on, he might now consider writing a sequel: “The Obama Nations.” For now not just millions of Americans, but also billions of foreigners are inspired by the hope that the African-American president-elect spreads.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:48 PM | Comments (2)
October 12, 2008
Good Morning Capitalist Vietnam
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
HO CHI MINH CITY - Some of the most striking images of the ’70s were from the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese forces. After a bloody war that lasted for two decades, the Vietcong had finally captured this capital city of U.S.-supported South Vietnam in April 1975. While the Americans were hastily evacuating their personnel, the gates of the Presidential Palace, which used to host the pro-U.S. leaders of the south, were crushed by tanks of the People’s Army of Vietnam. It was a victorious day for communism — and a tragic one for capitalism.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
March 6, 2008
Israel Should Stop Harvesting Hatred—For Its Own Sake
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The mighty Tsahal, the Israeli military, recently carried an air attack over the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The reason was the Qassam rockets that Hamas militants have been firing into the Jewish state for quite some time. After a week-long offensive, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs. At least 25 of them were civilians, including nine children and three women.
Then the Israelis decided to end their bombings. "This operation has run its course,” said the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon. “This is certainly deterrence.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:14 AM | Comments (13)
January 10, 2008
Why Turkish Women Can't Drive
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
This might not be the most politically correct thing to say, but I cannot resist the temptation to proclaim the truth: Most Turkish women are horrible drivers. You will see what I mean if you spend a couple of years, or even months, in Turkish streets. If there is a car in front of you which is too slow, too undecided, and too paralyzed, there is 95 percent change that a lady will be sitting in its driver seat. Indeed, it is a truism among Turkish men that “women can't drive.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:02 AM | Comments (3)
December 8, 2007
Muslims Love Their Children, Too
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Music has not saved the world, as some pot smoking flower-powerists used to believe it would in the 1960s. Yet musicians have occasionally uttered words of wisdom that might have helped us calm our hypes. Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, better known by his stage name Sting, once gave one such message of restraint. In one of his greatest songs, “The Russians,” released very timely in 1985, Sting sang the following:
“In Europe and America,
There is a growing feeling of hysteria,
Conditioned to respond to all the threats,
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.
Mr. Khrushchev said we will bury you,
[But] I don't subscribe to this point of view,
It would be such an ignorant thing to do,
If the Russians love their children, too.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:32 PM | Comments (11)
July 7, 2007
Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
EL ESCORIAL - The medieval monks who built the giant Monastery of El Escorial couldn't have imagined that their all-Catholic civitas dei would someday host hot debates on the future of political Islam. Yet that's exactly what happened here, in this little Spanish town located some 45 kilometers northwest of Madrid, this week. The “political Islam” in question was Turkey's incumbent AKP, the Justice and Development Party, and its namesake in Morocco, the Parti de la Justice et du Développement.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:46 PM | Comments (4)
Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
EL ESCORIAL - The medieval monks who built the giant Monastery of El Escorial couldn't have imagined that their all-Catholic civitas dei would someday host hot debates on the future of political Islam. Yet that's exactly what happened here, in this little Spanish town located some 45 kilometers northwest of Madrid, this week. The “political Islam” in question was Turkey's incumbent AKP, the Justice and Development Party, and its namesake in Morocco, the Parti de la Justice et du Développement.
Continue reading "Morocco's 'AKP' Is Moroccan, After All"
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 10:46 PM | Comments (4)
April 4, 2007
Thus Spoke the Zarathustrian Kurds
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Mehdi Zana, the former mayor of Diyarbakır and a prominent figure among Turkey's Kurdish nationalists, has made the news twice in the past weeks with his claims on Kurdish history. First, he argued that Kurds simply had a brighter record before Islam. Second, as we read in the weekly news magazine Aksiyon, he claimed that the authentic religion of the Kurds is Zoroastrianism. They later converted to Islam, according to Zana, “due to the fear of the sword,” and “as a big mistake.”
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 11:11 AM | Comments (6)
December 22, 2006
The Turkmen Theocracy Lost Its God
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Saparmurat Niyazov, or "His Excellency Turkmenbashi, President of Turkmenistan and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers" as his official title reads, was one of the few remaining icons of a 20th century political phenomenon: Cult of personality. As a man who grew up in a Soviet orphanage, and who built his political career in the Communist Party of the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan, he was loyal to the heritage of his late comrades such as Stalin or Mao, who depicted themselves as secular gods.
"Turkmenbashi," i.e. "Head of Turkmens," had been running Turkmenistan since the fall of the Soviet Union. He continued with the Soviet style politics, and thus didn't allow any political opposition to flourish. During his 15-year reign, freedom of speech has been virtually non-existent. Any criticism of the leader has been considered treason and punishable by lengthy prison terms, imprisonment in mental institutions, or exile to camps in remote areas. Government informers have been closely monitoring the society to find out such enemies of the people, i.e. proponents of freedom.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 12:26 PM | Comments (4)
December 13, 2006
Holocaust Denial Won't Help Iran—or Palestine
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Iranian leaders apparently think that they are doing their nation a favor nowadays by hosting anti-Semitic ideologues such as David Duke, the leader of Ku Klux Klan, for a conference which challenges the truth of the Jewish Holocaust. Are they right?
First, one should recall what Holocaust denial, or as its proponents call it, "Holocaust Revisionism," is. It is a fringe movement that started in the 60's by the French historian Paul Rassinier's "The Drama Of The European Jews" and American historian David Hoggan's "The Myth of the Six Million." In the 70's a few other historians like Arthur Butz, David Irving and Robert Faurisson joined the line. In 1979 the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was founded in California, which became, and still acts as, the headquarters of the "revisionist" movement.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 2:37 PM | Comments (4)
April 14, 2005
Put the Fear of God Back Into the Mideast Peace Process
[Originally published in The Forward and The Washington Times]
The historic visit to Israel earlier this month by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party, proves a Muslim who is serious about his religion can be friendly to Israel, and that those who predicted a decline in Turkish-Israeli relations following the rise of Erdogan's Islamic-inspired conservative party were wrong.
As another Muslim from Turkey, let me offer a personal story of my visit to Israel, especially to those who might still be, quite understandably, suspicious about the possibility of a real, committed amity between serious Muslims and the Jewish state.
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Posted by Mustafa Akyol at 3:42 PM | Comments (3)
