No Compulsion in Religion — No Exceptions
Edited by Mustafa Akyol
Cato Institute
ISBN: 978-1964524948
184pp.

There are certain subjects that many Muslims cannot discuss casually — or frankly — anywhere in the world among themselves. These include apostasy laws and their implementation, blasphemy prosecutions or anything related to women’s empowerment with a focus on their autonomy.

Bring these topics up in drawing rooms in Lahore or Los Angeles, and you are likely to encounter a kind of strategic silence. There are long pauses, careful language, deflective smiles and layers of sugar-coating. Most of us do not feel comfortable sharing our thoughts, out of fear of being judged and, in some instances, being accused of heresy.

In other instances, there is outright rejection of the very premise of questions about individual freedom and dignity, and it is termed nefarious or veiled Western modernity.

I have had many such interesting conversations with Muslims from diverse backgrounds from across the world. With a few exceptions, the standard response has become predictable: “Come on, what the Taliban in Afghanistan are doing is not Islam”, or “This is not the right way to implement God’s law”, or “This is coercion, and has no place in the real Islamic state.”

A timely collection of essays by prominent Islamic scholars argues that arguments for religious freedom and against coercion exist within Islamic intellectual tradition itself

The striking thing to note is that, in the same breath, while coercion is acknowledged as unacceptable in principle, so too is the “expression or exercise of will.” In other words, although freedom is theoretically and conditionally recognised, in practice, it is often deemed offensive to what many perceive as the core of “true Islam.”

These deflective smiles, long pauses or outright rejection of questions about freedom reveal a deeper anxiety prevailing among Muslims globally. It is a reflection of the widely held assumption that many Muslims hold true even today, that Islam and freedom are inherently two separate, incompatible entities and cannot be reconciled.

As a result, most Muslims have become quite apologetic, unnecessarily defensive and quite uncertain of their ground when the discussion turns to human dignity, freedom, choice and Islam in the same breath. As a Muslim and as a student of Islam and politics in Muslim-majority countries, I find this deeply problematic and challenging.

You cannot beat, jail or threaten someone into genuine faith. This principle extends across all religious domains, ranging from daily prayers to fasting to dressing modestly to theological belief itself.

A new book, No Compulsion in Religion — No Exceptions, edited by Mustafa Akyol, a senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Cato Institute, and with contributions by prominent Islamic scholars from across the Muslim world, including Abdullah Saeed, Husnul Amin, Asma Afsaruddin and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, directly confronts these uncomfortable silences and troubling questions.

The book’s central argument is as simple as it is powerful: the Quranic verse: “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) should be understood, interpreted and applied comprehensively — with no exceptions — to all people, irrespective of their religious affiliation and geography. The authors argue that this verse must be used not just to protect non-Muslims from forced conversion, as is common in most conservative interpretations. Instead, it should be used to challenge — and ultimately dismantle — all forms of religious coercion within Muslim societies.

In other words, the book brings the universality of non-coercion — the freedom to choose — to Islam in general and to this verse in particular, and this is precisely what makes it both bold and provocative for many Muslim readers.

At the heart of Islamic theology and politics lie several fundamental questions. To whom is the individual answerable to in matters of religion? To other individuals claiming religious authority? To the state acting in religion’s name? Or directly to God alone? No Compulsion in Religion directly tackles these questions and offers clear, persuasive answers grounded in Islamic tradition.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, for example, articulates in the concluding chapter: “The Sharia can and should always be practised voluntarily in society, never enforced by the state. Whatever any state does is to enforce its own political will, and not the Sharia as such.” This is the essential point the book tries to make: that Islam recognises individuality, dignity and freedom. Without any qualification or conditions, it essentially presupposes each person’s capacity and responsibility to stand directly before God.

However, these scholars also acknowledge and attempt to counter those dominant interpretations which have historically and increasingly denied these fundamentals by inserting human intermediaries between the believer and the divine.

The other most profound contribution of the book is that coercion is religiously invalid, not just undesirable. This contention is based upon the Islamic principle of niyyah, which means pure and sincere intention. Islam primarily requires genuine intention, but coercion automatically nullifies religious observance. The state enforcement of such values is, therefore, theologically counterproductive.  As An-Na’im puts it, “any observance of the Sharia must be completely voluntary to meet the requirement of ‘intent to comply (niyyah in Arabic)’, which is essential for any action or omission to be religiously valid from an Islamic point of view. Conversely, any coercion or compulsion renders conformity null and void from a religious point of view.”

You cannot beat, jail or threaten someone into genuine faith. This principle extends across all religious domains, ranging from daily prayers to fasting to dressing modestly to theological belief itself.        

The case of Iran, as discussed in the book, should be eye-opening. The Islamic Republic has enforced religiosity for almost four decades. What did it achieve? The opposite. Iranian society has experienced a dramatic religious decline rather than the anticipated revival. British journalist Nicolas Pelham noted in 2019 that “despite Iran’s pious reputation, Tehran may well be the least religious capital in the Middle East… Unlike most Muslim countries, the call to prayer is almost inaudible.”

Similarly, a 2020 survey also revealed that only approximately 40 percent of Iranians identified as Muslim during confidential polling, compared to over 90 percent according to official statistics. The lesson is unmistakable: coercion produces outward conformity but not inner faith and, over time, generates resentment and, ultimately, religious abandonment. One can also argue that it can lead to rebellion under certain conditions, as seen in women’s struggle for independence and personal autonomy in Iran in 2026.

My conversations on these subjects in Pakistan and the United States suggest that many Muslims, particularly those in comfortable positions within Western societies or in positions of power in Muslim-majority countries, dismiss freedom-centred arguments as “Western-inspired interpretations of Islam.” These arguments portray Islam and its history as if individual rights and religious liberty were foreign impositions, incompatible with authentic Islamic civilisations.

One contribution of this book is that, by drawing on Quranic exegesis, hadith [sayings of Prophet Muhammad PBUH] analysis, classical scholars and historical precedents, it demolishes that excuse. On the contrary, it demonstrates that arguments for religious freedom exist within Islamic intellectual tradition itself, though they have often been marginalised or suppressed in favour of authoritarian interpretations that served the interests of rulers and clerical establishments.

Akyol, in the first chapter, suggests that discussions of rights and freedoms existed in the 17th century Ottoman Empire. When the militant Kadzadeli Movement sought to violently enforce their interpretation of Islam — banning coffee, tobacco and Sufi practices — they were opposed by scholars like Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, making explicitly Quranic arguments for non-coercion.

For instance, Al-Nabulsi wrote in 1682: “As God Almighty said: ‘And say, “Truth is from your Lord. Whoever wants, let him believe and whoever wants, let him disbelieve”’ [18:29]. The meaning of this verse is not to force people to obey the command and avoid the prohibition… And God Almighty said: ‘No compulsion in religion’ [2:256].” This happened three centuries before modern Western human rights discourse, demonstrating that freedom is not a foreign import but is embedded in Islamic tradition itself.

The book’s ultimate argument can be stated simply: it is impossible for a faith system to sustain itself based on fear alone. Genuine religion requires conscience, conviction and voluntary commitment. State coercion can produce outward conformity, but not inner faith. For those who believe that Islam’s future depends on recovering its emphasis on human dignity, moral agency and direct accountability to God rather than to human intermediaries, this book offers both intellectual resources and moral encouragement.

The conversations we have been avoiding must finally happen. No Compulsion in Religion — No Exceptions provides the scholarly foundation to begin them.

The reviewer is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Boston University, USA

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 15th, 2026

[Continued from previous column]

“Take a slip of paper and write on it these words: I adjure you, O mice, who dwell here, not to injure me yourselves nor to permit any other mouse to do so; and I make over to you this field. But should I find you staying here after having been warned, with the help of all that is holy, I will cut you in seven pieces.”

This very fine recipe to banish field mice is to be found in E.P. Evans’s The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, a book which covers the period from the 13th to the 20th century and is full of accounts of homicidal and reckless pigs, bulls, horses, donkeys, mules and cows and mischievous caterpillars, flies, moles, worms, snails and leeches. All of them were delivered a wide range of punishments and threats under the penal and religious codes, by both legal and ecclesiastical authorities, despite Thomas Aquinas’ interdiction that animals are not subjects of law, because they cannot understand words or think rationally.

I’m putting it all out there just to give you some idea of the fine works that made up the literature review for the project that was my first novel. And yet, the novel was not quite there. As mentioned in the previous column, the termites were helping connect the characters, but the bond was still ephemeral.

After the passage of so many years, I no longer remember exactly how I found a direction for the novel, or the mental process through which it came about but, finally, reading all those books paid off. Having written all the character sketches for my book, I could tell what would be interesting for the reader and that, without the slightest hint of nepotism, the novel’s leading protagonist should be my nana [maternal grandfather], a poet and a horseman whose health and circumstances had been considerably reduced and who, in his seventies, became obsessed with a female TV singer and finding himself a bride.

Every Sunday, he would sit with the matrimonial advertisements in daily Jang, and mark potential candidates with his red and blue pencil.

His eyesight was failing and, whenever he heard his favourites come on TV, he would get up from his chair and slowly make his way to the TV where, with his nose pressed to the TV screen, he could regale himself with her vision.

Every Sunday, he would sit with the matrimonial advertisements in daily Jang, and mark potential candidates with his red and blue pencil. One no longer finds these pencils in stationery shops, but there was a time when the half-red, half-blue pencils were widely available. Called checking pencils, they were traditionally used in editing. One used the blue pencil to write or mark material that needed to be inserted, while the red pencil was for content that should be deleted.

However, my nana had his own philosophy of usage for these pencils. He would first make a longlist of the potential candidates by circling the relevant ads with the blue pencil and, later, after a careful review, make a shortlist by circling them with red. What was the inspiration behind this philosophy, one does not know, although it might be helpful to mention that, during World War II, the blue-red checking pencils were also used to mark troop positions on maps.

Later, nana would compose his replies to these ads. A typical reply ran up to four pages. As my nana’s favourite, I was entrusted to post these letters and, ever the reader, I would often open these letters, and have my nana’s prose keep me company on my way to the post office. I remember a few things about those letters. That their prose was ornate and the approach poetic, in the sense that, when mentioning his age, he would exaggerate his youth by reporting himself 20 years younger.

Aware of nana’s doings, the family worried that one day his letter might reach someone in our circle of acquaintances, causing the family due embarrassment.

Alas, nana’s letters were not preserved by time, but I used the memory of my nana’s twin obsessions to create the fictitious singer Noor-i-Firdousi, and two letters that Salar Jang, the character inspired by my nana, sent her, one of which contained an ode.

An Ode to the Nightingale of the Battlefield
When the crow of war appeared cawing in the skies,
And on motherland’s unsullied virtue the evil eye cast,
Ere heavens sent a thousand armed seraphs to defend her throne,
The locks of fury spread out on her fair countenance, the Nightingale,
Rose in the spellbound heavens and mangled
the abject avis with her ire’s talons.
In her scorn his grave, and last perch the bird found.

Salar Jang’s obsessive, unrequited love for Noor-i-Firdousi became the novel’s driving force.

I also had a pet obsession of my own, which I wished to give full play in the novel as a secondary plot. This obsession had to do with the concept of infinite time and eternity. How to fathom time that has no beginning or end, and how to intellectually reconcile it with our notion of material time. This obsession was assigned to another character.

And thus, by slow degrees, the novel came together.

Some time after I had finished writing it, I remember visiting my former office, where I had worked as a sub-editor. Sitting there, listening to the editors and reporters discuss the day’s events, it suddenly occurred to me that I could seamlessly capture the whole scene with all its characters, and their gossipy, happy, boastful selves. From struggling to connect characters like the pieces of a patchwork quilt, I was beginning to see how I could weave lives together.

The columnist is a novelist, author and translator.

He can be reached via his website: micromaf.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 15th, 2026

The Urdu word ‘kal’ shares the two-directional ability of looking backwards and forwards, much like the mythical Roman god Janus. Coincidentally, Janus represented the auspicious spirit of gateways from which to enter and exit a city. Kal, by its ambiguity, offers a semantic gateway to the metaphysics of time past and time forward. Karachi, too, owes its transformation from a fishing village to a cosmopolitan city to its port as a gateway for commerce.

The metaphysical linkage of past and present is intentional in Noor Ahmed’s choice of the term ‘Kal’, by which to inspire artists participating in the next Karachi Biennale (KB27). As the curator of the fifth Karachi Biennale that will take place in January 2027, she is casting the curatorial net across an ambitious spectrum of time that should allow archives, imagination and visionary ideas to be formulated into thoughtful art forms.

Linking the past and the future is the present moment, the aaj [today]. This tricky and shapeshifting moment in the now is what Noor and KB trustee Amin Gulgee (the curator of the first KB in 2017) focused on in their joint curation of the KB27 curtain-raiser that took place at the Gulgee Museum on February 13, 2026. The event also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Karachi Biennale Trust (KBT).

The event started with an exquisite artistic offering from Amin’s kitchen, in the form of tea served with channa chaat, dahi boondi, and dhoklas. Proprietary speeches were made and followed by a 77-minute show called ‘Aaj Aur Kal’. Seventy-two artists from 18 countries were the creators of the evanescent show that comprised performance and New Media art.

A curtain-raiser for next year’s Karachi Biennale transformed the Gulgee Museum into a hive of performance and digital art

Whereas performance art can be linked to the ancient past by virtue of its theatrical nature, New Media art is a product of the digital age. Technology using computer-based art, virtual and augmented reality, video games, interactive installation art etc fall within this category.

Trustees of the KB, artists and art aficionados wandered through the floors of the Gulgee Museum, contributing to the vitality of the event. Multiple TV screens had been positioned across the spaces of the Gulgee Museum. Performing artists had been allocated spaces to enact their ideas in makeshift stations. One may think of the museum interior as transformed into a hive that buzzed with eddies of artistic endeavour.

Abrar Ahmed was told to go fly a kite, which he did on the rooftop with kites made by himself in ‘Basant Notes’. Veera Rustomji portrayed her own flight simulations in ink prints shown on screen. Bilal Ahmed soared spiritually as a convincing dancing dervish. Sheema Kermani led a flock of onlookers as she strode through the corridors crying “Dissent!”

Rumana Husain had the Zaro Gulgee room allotted to her performance as she told stories of women clad in red. Meher Afroz’s installation showed images of precious artefacts accompanied by her voice recording as a contemplation on the transience of greed and the inevitability of mortality in Meher Ki Kahani. The artist Yumna cleaved rose stems with a ferocity that terrified many a viewer.

These performances and digital recordings played against the serene backdrop of Ismail Gulgee’s paintings. He and Zaro were invoked in Amin’s opening speech. Their spirited embrace of living in the now without overly preoccupying themselves with the past or future, created another link to ‘Aaj Aur Kal.’ Such spirit builds resilience — an essential weapon of every citizen living in a mismanaged metropolis. It feeds into the raison d’etre of the biennale, which brings art out of the gallery space into the public realm.

Noor also connected her childhood awakening to art by recalling two Ismail Gulgee paintings that were acquired by her family. Her curatorial description of KB27 is a “communal voyage for Kal, positing Karachi as an urban archipelago of inventions, mythologies and habitats.”

As a smorgasbord of things to come, ‘Aaj Aur Kal’ emanated contemporariness. One left with the impression that an energetic promise has been made by the curtain-raiser to move beyond the 77 minutes into 14 days of yesterday and tomorrow next January, a month named after Janus.

‘Aaj Aur Kal’ was held at the Gulgee Museum on February 13, 2026

The writer is an independent researcher, writer, art critic and curator based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 15th, 2024