Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance

This isn't entirely related to the American Founding and religion; though readers will relate to the language and terminology used here. From the article:

Mustafa Akyol, in his excellent new book Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance (St. Martin’s Press, 2021), speaks into this context. Having the privilege of meeting Akyol two years ago at a lecture he gave here in New England, I immediately felt a kinship with him by way of his work toward greater integration of faith and reason among Muslims, paralleling my own among Christians. We also connected over our mutual desire for better Muslim-Christian relations. In his newest book, Akyol states his intention to work toward an Islamic enlightenment that draws on Muslim tradition rather than Western values. For instance, while the initial centuries of Islam were intellectually diverse and vibrant, this was eventually replaced with a focus on jurisprudence or a legal culture, on dos and don’ts. (p. 12) Meanwhile, theistic rationalism, seeking harmony between faith and reason was surpassed by fideism, where faith does not need rational justification. (p. 25) Akyol summarizes, “The puzzle is this: When God tells us to ‘do this,’ or ‘don’t do this,’ does He educate us about objective values in the world that we could also understand on our own? Or, does He merely give us bare commandments whose very value comes from nothing but God’s own authority?” (p. 30) While the Mutazilites took the view that faith was largely compatible with free will and believed all humans have a natural ethical compass, the Asharites argued in favor of a more pre-deterministic view of the world, with which they eventually won the debate. Akyol offers helpful suggestions for Muslims to recover the integrated view of faith and reason.