Just over a week, ago, a remarkable op-ed appeared in The New York Times written by Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish writer with a regular column in The Times. This column was different. Only a few days earlier, he describes, he was in jail in Malaysia for speaking out for religious freedom and for the rationalist tradition in Islam. In the column, he decried the government’s actions and called for religious freedom in Malaysia: there shall be no compulsion in religion, it says in the Quran.
Akyol’s courage should not be lost on any reader. He is one of Islam’s leading voices for religious freedom and freedom in general and has suffered at the hands not only of Malaysia but of several governments for his dissidence and his witness.