Mustafa Akyol

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Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish Muslim writer, who claims to argue both against Islamic extremism and what he calls extreme secularism. He is an outspoken promoter of intelligent design^[1] and has identified himself as a former spokesman for Bilim Arastirma Vakfi, a creationist group, started by Adnan Oktar^[2].

Akyol was born in Ankara in 1972 and had his early education there. He later graduated from the Istanbul Nişantaşı Anadolu Lisesi and the International Relations Department of Bosphorus University. He earned his masters in the History Department of the same university.

He is currently working as a columnist in Turkish daily newspaper and is also the director of international relations at the Intercultural Dialogue Platform, a subsidiary of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, founded by Fethullah Gülen.

In the past years he has given seminars in several universities in the U.S. and the UK on issues of faith, science, religious tolerance or inter-faith dialogue.

Mustafa Akyol's articles on Islamic issues, in which he mostly argues against Islamic extremism and terrorism from a Muslim point of view and defends the Islamic faith, have appeared in publications like The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, The American Enterprise, National Review, FrontPage Magazine and Islam Online. He lives in Istanbul and is currently working on a book titled An Islamic Case for Liberty, which he plans to have published in 2007.