From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Wednesday, February 21st.

If the United States is losing Mustafa Akyal, it may be losing the world. If you don't know Mustafa Akul, he has long

been a leading proponent of liberalizing Islam. He's a senior fellow at the Kato Institute think

tank. He has been a contributing New York Times columnist in recent years, and he focuses on what he

calls Islam and modernity. For example, his book published

in 2021 was called Reopening Muslim Minds, a Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance. You get the

idea. A decade earlier, he wrote one called Islam Without Extremes, and he's got one coming out

later this year, called the Islamic Moses,

how the prophet inspired Jews and Muslims to flourish together and change the world.

But now, as the Gaza death toll approaches 30,000 in the response to October 7th,

and President Biden refuses to place any conditions on military

aid to Israel as he presses Congress for billions more for them.

Mustafa Akyal has an analysis in foreign policy magazine called The West is Losing Liberal

Islam.

Mustafa Akhil joins me now. Thanks very much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here. Can your first let our listeners

get to know you and your work a little bit more? Your book seemed to argue, as a publisher's note

puts it, that values often associated with Western

Enlightenment, freedom, reason, tolerance, and appreciation of science, had Islamic

counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for

political ends. That's a quote. Can you give us a brief synopsis of what your aims have been and writing your books?

Sure, Brian.

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