Mustafa Akyol

Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, where he focuses on the intersection of public policy, Islam, and modernity. He is the author of Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance (2021), Why, as a Muslim, I Defend Liberty (2021), The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims (2017), and Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (2011)---all of which have been translated into several languages.

Akyol also teaches classes at the Islamic Civilization and Societies program at Boston College. He is the director of the Islam and the Muslim World course at Foreign Service Institute as well.

From 2013 to 2021, Akyol was a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, covering politics and religion in the Muslim world. His articles have also appeared in a wide range of other publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera. He also used to be an opinion columnist in his native Turkey, when there was a relatively freer press.

He has been widely recognized as a Muslim thinker who highlights the roots of freedom and toleration within the Islamic tradition. In July 2021, the Prospect magazine of the UK listed him among “The world’s top 50 thinkers.”