In the recently published No Compulsion in Religion—No Exceptions: Islamic Arguments for Religious Freedom, Cato senior fellow Mustafa Akyol collaborated with a team of international Muslim scholars to articulate a noncoercive vision of Islam. Among the issues addressed in the book are blasphemy laws that restrict free speech in dozens of countries—with Pakistan often regarded as home to some of the most troubling cases.
Akyol will discuss the issue with two Pakistani scholars: Husnul Amin, author of the book’s chapter on blasphemy, and Muhammad Khalid Masud, the book’s academic adviser and a distinguished scholar of Islamic law and theology. The three will also explore how a reformist reading of the Qur’an and other Islamic sources can help build a case against blasphemy laws.
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