Author: Ahmet T. Kuru

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Demonstrators in Iran give the victory sign (photo: abaca/picture-alliance)

Protests in Iran

Rethinking Sharia and democracy

According to a recent survey, half of all Iranians say that they have left Islam as a religion, while two-thirds believe Islamic law should be excluded from their legal system. In the following essay, Ahmet T. Kuru explores the implicationsMore

Islam’s conscientious thinkers: People of reason vs. people of the hadithAuthoritarianism in the Islamic world: Islamic clerics and statesmen in an unholy allianceCritical Koran edition: The Koran – and its variants?Qantara photo essay: Around the world of Islam
A young Muslim woman making bag lunches for homeless people in San Francisco (photo: Abdel Rahman Bassa)

9/11 twenty years on

Muslims in the West – the cultural go-betweens

Twenty years after 9/11, the world is faced with the dual challenge of Islamophobia and anti-Westernism. Ahmet Kuru argues that Muslims in the West, well versed in both Western and Muslim cultures, are key to resolving the mutual antipathy felt by manyMore

Portrait of the Lebanese-American artist Helen Zughaib: "We are more similar than dissimilar"Muslims in the USA: Anything but lethargicIslamophobia in the USA: Standing up for Muslim rightsMuslim youth in America: The "mipster" phenomenonJohn R. Bowen's ''Blaming Islam'': Deconstructing populism
Islamist activists carry placards against Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was released in 2018 after spending eight years on death row for blasphemy; Karachi, 21 November 2018 (photo: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images)

Execution for a Facebook post?

Why blasphemy is a capital offence in some Muslim countries

The Prophet Muhammad never executed anyone for apostasy, nor encouraged his followers to do so. Nor is criminalising sacrilege based on Islam’s main sacred text, the Koran. In this essay, Ahmet Kuru exposes the political motivations for criminalising blasphemy and apostasyMore

Human rights in the Islamic world: Battle cry "blasphemy"Abusing blasphemy legislation: Indonesia's slide towards identity politicsAuthoritarianism and underdevelopment in the Islamic world: Islamic clerics and statesmen in an unholy allianceThe decline of Islamic scientific thought: Don't blame it on al-Ghazali