Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty

0:00Mustafa Akyol, it's a pleasure to have you here, and I must first say that if anybody's listening to this interview and has not heard your speech, just turn off this interview and go listen to your speech, it was magnificent. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure, and I was also very honored by all the feedback I got from the audience, really. Well, it was a mind-blowing speech, and if I could give it a special title, I would call it an introduction to tolerance. Do you know what I mean?

0:45That sounds pretty good, yeah. An introduction to tolerance. Because you explained Islam, and do you know how little we understand about Islam in this country? Well, there are people who understand Islam and there are people who misunderstand it and there are people who want to promote that particular misunderstanding for various reasons, some of them are political, I guess. And yeah, I see the problem there. I mean, America has the right to be concerned about some of the extremists in the Muslim world, certainly, but that doesn't define the Islamic civilization, that doesn't define Islamic history, but there are people who want to see it that way and they're certainly Yeah, it's the state. It's the state again and again. But what struck me during your whole talk, almost every slice of history that you pulled out and explained, whether you were discussing jihad or various ways to interpret Islamic scriptures, there is There's an analogy in the West.

1:53The same problems, the same disputes, the same struggle between liberty and control. Exactly. Do you see what I mean? Exactly. And actually in my book, in my upcoming book, Islam Without Extremes, A Muslim Case for Liberty, when I'm discussing these issues, I sometimes go and look at the Christian example as well. Same discussions about whether reason should have a role in an understanding of religion or it should be dogmatic. That was made in Christendom as well. Discussions about whether the state represents God or not were made in both civilizations. Certainly, there are many, they're similar, because they are Abrahamic monotheism. I mean, they come from the same roots. There's a tendency to think that Islam is something totally alien, and even people like think that the term Allah, the Muslim's term for God, they think it's a different deity or something.

2:47The opening words of the Koran are quite frequently mis-rendered in the Western press as there's no God but Allah. Allah means the God in Arabic. There's no God but God, which is a profound line. And that's why Arabic-speaking Christians use the term Allah as well. There's no other word in Arabic other than Allah. Again, almost everything you said, it was a revelation. About six months ago, eight months ago, I wrote you and asked you what I should read And you recommend a wonderful book that I have read and read and read. It's called The Jewel of the World. The Ornament of the World. The Ornament of the World. And it discusses this convivencia. Is that the right pronunciation? Convivencia. I guess so, yeah. Yeah. A 700-year period of coming together of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in really Cordoba and surrounding areas in Spain. And it's been such an education for me.

3:45Oh, I mean, thank you. It's a really great book and that Spanish example really has lots to say about the history of Islam. One thing about Islam, which is natural, is that since Islam came after Judaism and Christianity, it accepted their legitimacy. Like it said, well, they are God's revelations and they have lots of truths. It disagreed profoundly in some theological ways, in particular with Christianity, but it said they have the rights Rights to Practice, and they're the people of the book. The Islamic law did not grant them equal status, but that came in the 19th century when the Ottoman Empire gave the idea, gave the right to be equal citizens, to Jews and Christians. And when you look at the Ottoman Parliament in the 19th century, one-third was non-Muslims.

4:31Well, and let's be clear on what you mean by not equal status. I mean, it means that Christians and Jews must pay a small tax, a tax. But this tax is nothing like a modern tax. Exactly. I mean, this is nothing. Yeah. And they pay the tax and they're exempt from military service, to which Muslims are subscribed to. So, actually, when the equality came in late Ottoman Empire, some Christians said, we don't want equality. We would rather pay the tax and not go to the military. This is... I know you understand the way American politics are shaking out these days, but, you know, Islam is the new, how do you say, I mean, it's a kind of the new communism, the new great fear. And this is very recent. And so your message, your historical message and your doctrinal message is probably the most important thing that Americans could ever hear, and it's a challenging one.

5:28I mean, I think Americans should think that, I mean, Islam is sitting there for 14 centuries and only in the past decade that the West thinks that Islam is so horrible. What was it before, like in the 50s and 60s and 70s and the 19th century, I mean Muslims were already there and it was not an issue. Now it became an issue mainly because of a political crisis and because some people want to exaggerate the problem in both sides of the conflict. Well and it was striking too about your lectures, the expanse of time in which you're speaking and that's mind-blowing for Americans who think only maybe as far back as 100 or 200 years. But, you know, in the ninth century, for example, and you would, in your lecture tonight, you quite frequently discuss the whole swath of this, of the Middle Ages in a way that we don't often think about. But in the ninth century, under Islamic rule, in the city of

6:21Cordoba, paved streets, lit streets, gigantic libraries, ten times, a hundred times larger than any library in all of Christendom, public baths, hundreds and hundreds of public, civilization in the 9th century, Cordoba, where it didn't exist anywhere else under Islamic rule. Exactly. Actually, there's a priest in the 9th century, if I'm not wrong, in North Africa, and he complains how the Christians are fascinated by the Arab Muslim culture. And he said, everybody's reading Arab books, nobody reads the Latin, the scriptures anymore. He basically accuses them to be Muslim wannabes. And actually there's a term that created at the time among Christians called Mozarab, which means Arab wannabe, literally.

7:13So the Muslim culture was so fascinating and attractive that people were being drawn to that from Europe and the more authoritative voices in Europe were complaining from that, which is completely opposite today, which is the Western culture, obviously, which is attractive and which has the greatest libraries and nicest streets and so on, and the Muslims are Attracted at. Which shows us that the problem in either medieval Europe or in contemporary Islamic world is not something, the problems, or let's say, is not something inherent in those religions. These are just historical fluctuations based on politics, economics, and lots of factors. It shows that religions can take different roles and forms throughout history. Of course.

7:58The state is always anxious. Those who want power and who believe in violence, where you're willing to use whatever the prevailing cultural paradigm, religious paradigm is, whether it's Christianity or Judaism or Islam. Exactly. Or anything else. Exactly. And same thing. I mean, in the Muslim world, some of the warmongering people, I mean, not in a very maybe state-oriented way, but even in the individual terrorist groups, they do have some power relations, certainly. I mean, they want to have and achieve a status among, in the community of heroism and so on. But if he can look to what Islam is or what Christianity is, by putting aside all those power relations, we see a much more refreshing picture, I would say.

8:45Yes. And part of your lecture, I particularly appreciate it, although it was totally unnecessary for you to do this, but why it was to draw attention to the Islamic or Arabic contribution to modernity really. And, you know, we were talking about Spain, and we at the Mises Institute have often talked about the birth of economic science in Spain, you know, coming out of this period, the long period of time where you had this merging of cultures, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and out of which comes these centers of learning and then the birth of economic science in The 13th, 14th century, which is a compelling story, because the clash, or not the clash, but the coming together of these traditions gives rise to modernity and then also to the prosperity of Spain, which was much more prosperous than England or any other place.

9:45That is the success of Islamic civilization. The big success of I think medieval Islamic civilization lies in its pluralism. Since the Islamic law gave space for Christians and Jews, they continued to exist in the Islamic world and they brought in contributions. Or Muslims also learned from the Hindus in their philosophy or Jewish philosophy. So when you have many elements together, arguing, discussing and learning from each other, you have a vibrant civilization. And that was enriched by trade, which was in the Muslim world was at the center of the world trade routes. Right. So you find that these religions become far more tolerant of other religions when there's an economic interest to do so.

10:30Exactly. And the same thing was true in Christianity. Like 17th century Holland became the place where the argument for religious tolerance emerged strongly. It was a place for merchants whose job was compelling them to be more tolerant. And the same thing for, too, was like Basra or Baghdad, which was quite diverse. But on the other hand, in the Saudi, in today's Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, there was a much more harsh and rigid Islamic interpretation. And in the 20th century, thanks to oil money, that interpretation became very fashionable and popular throughout the world. So you cut off trade and it makes it, it fuels a kind of fundamentalism. Exactly, yes. Stagnates a culture which ultimately leads to intolerance to other cultures right and and freezes a doctrine even religious doctrine that the doctrines form around The world that people experience yeah exactly exactly and the fact that for example in the Muslim in the medieval Muslim culture There are many Islamic scholars all have latinized names

11:34like like Al-Kindi is known as Al-Kindus or or Farabi is known as Al-Faribus in the west, or Avicenna is Ibn Rushd, the reason why they, or you know, like the term algorithm, as I said in my class, comes from Al-Kharizmi, a Muslim mathematician of the time and the reason is that there was this translation and it's not too different today that Muslims read about John Locke or Hayek or Mises that they have these discoveries, some intellectual discoveries So, there has always been this interaction between civilizations. The question is, can we keep them peaceful, which contributes to those civilizations? But if it becomes violent, if it becomes militarist, if it becomes imperialist, then that leads to bigger and bigger problems.

12:24Well, and one way to prevent that is to increase understanding, and in particular, understanding of history and to understand the Islamic contribution to modern civilization is absolutely critical. We have Islam bringing to the West all the writings of the ancient, not all of the writers, but the majority of the writings of the ancient philosophers was brought to us by, and preserved and brought to us by Islam. Technology, the most advanced technology of the Middle Ages was a gift of Islam to the world. And we need to understand this in order to, I hate to say it, but for Americans to humanize their world. Exactly.

13:05One problem though within Muslims is that they just are proud of that heritage, but they don't engage in something new then. They just live in the past. Maybe the West has a problem of not knowing or appreciating the Muslim civilization in the Middle Ages, which was brilliant in many ways. One problem in the modern world is Muslims prefer to live in that glorious past and not face some of today's problems. Whereas I would say, as a Muslim, I would say, let's take inspiration from our past, but let's look at today and let's live in today's world. Try to bring our values today to today's world, but try to reform that value, because I mean, try to reform the way those values were expressed in medieval times. So in some sense, the fact that Islam has a glorious history has captured some Muslims' minds in today's world, thinking that they don't need to learn from other cultures.

13:59That was actually quite phenomenal. When you look at Ottoman history, the Ottomans don't think that the West can teach them anything until the late 18th century, so they consider that they are superior anyway. They were superior militarily and culturally, but the West started to rise, modernity started to rise in the West, and it was a little late to discover that. They tried to catch up and they did some important reforms in the 19th century, but then the The problem became modernity threatening them, which made them reactionary, not the Ottomans but later Muslims. It's the same problem we face in the West with Christianity. There are many types. There's a tolerant, a liberally minded, progressive Christianity that's nonetheless doctrinally orthodox but future looking and another kind.

14:48Here's another thing, Westerners always hear from the most radical, intolerant, rigid, Islamic Voices. That makes the news. And the same is true in my part of the world. What we hear from America is the most intolerant rhetoric. Well, that's right. When a pastor said he will burn the Koran a year ago. I mean, people don't hear about pastors in Turkey, but when he said that he will do that, that became news for many days. Probably it was big news when George Bush said that he invaded Iraq because God told him to do so. And he said it was a crusade. Exactly. That's what sticks to people's mind for a long time. That's why we should, in both civilizations, in both the Muslim world, where I come from, and both in the West, we should not just buy into the temptation to see enemies and evil people out there and to justify that by only seeing the most radical people in that camp, to try to understand other side and to be open-minded in the first place.

15:56When is your book going to be finished? My book is, it's done, it's coming out this July. You have a publisher, everything's fixed up in July? Yeah, publisher is Norton and it's coming out this July and Islam Without Extremes and Muslim Case for Liberty. Fine. Okay. Good, we look forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you for carrying it in the Mises store. All the honor. Thank you for coming and bringing your message, wonderful, scholarly, fascinating, challenging message to us at Auburn. Thank you, Jeff. It's my pleasure.

16:48www.fieggen.org