Edip Yüksel


Edip Yüksel is a Kurdish American author and philosophy professor of Sunni Muslim background. He is an exponent of the modern Islamic reform and Quranism movements and is known for his criticism and rejection of both Sunni and Shiite versions of Islam. Author of several books on the Qur'an and Islam, he gained attention through his works and speeches.
Yüksel promotes Theistic evolution as opposed to Creationism, and is critical of Islamic creationists, such as the jailed cult leader Harun Yahya, who is also known for his Holocaust denial.
Yüksel is a former member of the United Submitters International group, some adherents of which believe there is a numerological significance to the number 19 in the Quran.

Biography

Yüksel was born in Turkey in 1957 to a Kurdish family. His father, Sadreddin Yüksel, an Islamic scholar, taught Arabic at a Turkish university. His brother Metin Yüksel, an Islamist activist, was murdered by far-right nationalists. Yüksel says that he was an outspoken Islamist as a youth, and spent years in prison for his views. Yüksel says that he broke with Islamism in 1986 and adopted the Qur'an Alone philosophy as preached by Rashad Khalifa, the inspiration of the United Submitters International, whose beliefs include: the dedication of all worship practices to God alone, upholding the Quran alone, and rejecting the Islamic traditionalist hadith and sunnah attributed to Muhammad. Because of this, Yüksel's traditionalist father, Sadreddin, declared his son an apostate and he received many death threats from orthodox Muslims.
In 1989, Yüksel was sponsored for immigration to the US by Khalifa. Yüksel moved to Tucson, entered college, got a legal degree, and became a prominent member of the United Submitters International. He became a U.S. citizen in 1993.
Professor Aisha Musa, from Florida International University, says in her book Hadith as Scripture about Yüksel:
Edip organizes international Critical Thinkers for Reform conferences; so far in Atlanta, Oxford, Los Angeles, Almaty, and Istanbul. He has given lectures at various universities and institutions, including the University of Arizona, Emory Law, Princeton University, University of North Carolina, Oxford University, Middle East Technical University, Technische Universität Dortmund, European Parliament, British Parliament, etc.
Edip is married to a Persian-American dietitian who is currently working at TMC as diabetes educator. They have two children. Yahya, who received his law degree from the University of Arizona and LLM degree from Tsinghua University and an attorney member of California Bar. Matine, who recently graduated from Princeton University and presently working for a major ecommerce company as financial analyst.
He has taught philosophy and logic at Pima Community College since 1999, and medical ethics and criminal law courses at Brown Mackie College. He taught Turkish to high school students at a charter school which one of his two sons attended.

Trivia

Yüksel discussed mathematics and his book NINETEEN: God's Signature in Nature and Scripture with late Princeton Mathematician John Horton Conway while enjoying Turkish Delight and Ayran on September 27, 2013.
Yüksel called the Austin-based Atheist Experience call-in YouTube program on September 24, 2017. He discussed numerous topics with hosts Matt Dillahunty and guest Muhammad Syed. The call ended when Dillahunty hung up after almost 20 minutes.

Publications

Yüksel is the author of over twenty books on religion, politics, philosophy and law in Turkish. He has published many pamphlets and essays in English, most of them put out by the United Submitters press—his former congregation., and has written many articles on his own website and several press-websites. His new publications are with Brainbowpress. His official website remains banned in Turkey following complaints by Adnan Oktar.

English

Yüksel has published the following works in English:
His translation has been praised by many well-known authors and activists as Professor Riffat Hassan, Dr. Amina Wadud, Dr. Reza Aslan and Irshad Manji.
Yüksel has published the following works in Turkish: