Mustafa Akyol

Mustafa Akyol (born 20 February 1972) is a Turkish writer, intellectual and journalist, known for his advocacy of reform on blasphemy, apostasy and gender relations in the Muslim world, and described as a notable Muslim modernist and reformer. ^{1 2}

He was born to the journalist Taha Akyol and received his early education in Ankara. He graduated from Istanbul Nişantaşı Anadolu Lisesi and from the International Relations Department of Boğaziçi University, and earned his master's in its History Department with a thesis on Turkey's Kurdish question, later published as a book. ¹

He has written regular columns for Hürriyet Daily News and other Turkish and international publications, became a contributing opinion writer for the International New York Times in 2013, and spoke at TED on 'Faith versus tradition in Islam'. His English-language books are Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (2011), long-listed for the Lionel Gelber Prize, and The Islamic Jesus (2017). He has criticised both Islamic extremism and Turkish secularism, and his later commentary criticised the governing AKP for adopting authoritarian habits. Since 2018 he has been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. ¹

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