I recently spent a few days in Malaysia, where I was promoting the publication of the Malay edition of my book, â??Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.â? The publisher, a progressive Muslim organization called the Islamic Renaissance Front, had set up several talks for me in Kuala Lumpur. As any author would be, I was happy to learn that the team was enthusiastic about my book and had been getting good feedback from audiences and readers. But I was troubled by something else that I suspect many Muslim authors have experienced: My publisher was worried about censorship.
The risk, I was told, was that the Department of Islamic Development, a government body that â??was formed to protect the purity of faith,â? could ban the book if it was viewed as violating traditional Islamic doctrine.
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