It is beneficial for Turkish democracy that not all religious conservatives are united under one banner. Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
Foreign journalists writing about Turkey like to focus on the most fundamental divide in Turkish society: the rift between religious conservatives and secularists. Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
It is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called ‘Islamic regimes’ such as Saudi Arabia, Iran – and the worst case was the Taliban in Afghanistan – they are pretty authoritarian. No doubt about that. Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
The main bone of contention is whether Islamic injunctions are legal or moral categories. When Muslims say Islam commands daily prayers or bans alcohol, are they talking about public obligations that will be enforced by the state or personal ones that will be judged by God? Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
There are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe. Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
In the 19th century, when Muslims were looking at Europe as an example, they were independent; they were more self-confident. In the early 20th century, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the whole Middle East was colonized. And when you have colonization, what do you have? You have anti-colonization. Mustafa Akyol Read Quote
