08 March 2014

Islam needs its John Locke

.... However, there was also a less traveled, even less noticed, road as well: An Enlightenment of the Anglo-Saxon type, which does not attack religion, as done by its French counterpart, but reinterprets it within a new political framework that values liberty, tolerance and diversity.

Not the road of Luther or Voltaire, if you will, but the road of John Locke.

The British philosopher has long been in my heart and mind with regards to his approach to religion, but a fine book that I recently had a chance read made things even clearer: “Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy” by scholar Nader Hashemi (Oxford University Press, 2009). [Hürriyet Daily News] Read more