No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

Less than 300 reviews on Amazon, compared to more than 2,600 for his book Zealot, the Historical Jesus!! One would have hoped for just the opposite statistic, considering the timeliness of the topic is Islam, and the necessity to understand a non-Western culture and tradition. Perhaps the length of this review is this reviewer’s attempt to correct the lack No god but God, written 10 years before Zealot, includes a rather definitive discussion of the definition of “religion” as the story of faith. This definition is informative of the author’s perspective and will continue into his later work about the historical Jesus. Religion “…is an institutionalized system of symbols and metaphors (read rituals and myths) that provides a common language with which a community of faith can share with each other their numinous encounter with the Divine Presence. Religion is concerned not with genuine history, but with sacred history, which does not course through time like a river.” Aslan dismisses the “clash of culture” arguments and focuses on the “clash of monotheisms” (much the same as the clash between Christians and Jews is a clash of monotheisms). The book seems to be three monographs, woven together, very effectively. First Aslan discusses Arabia in the Period of Innocence, from which Mohammad emerges and develops the Islamic traditions.(Chapters 1-2) Second, Aslan takes the reader through the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his tribe and his followers. (Chapters 3-5) as Islam is developed into its own unique set of symbols and myths. These chapters carry stories of the Islamic traditions through Mohammad’s death and for centuries to today (chapters 6-7), including a wonderful chapter on Sufism. (Chapter 8). And the third “monograph” brings the reader to about 2010, the story of Islam in these latter centuries (Chapters 9-11), perhaps more rightly focused on the colonialized period of Arabia. In this “monograph”, Aslan seems to be caught up in his own dream for the future, and that dream is highly influenced by his being born in Tehran and then (my words), in exile for some 24 years before his return for a visit. His hopes anddream does not change the wisdom of his scholarship, however. Aslan develops clearly and historically the roles of Mecca and Medina within the both the Arabic and the Muslim traditions. Regardless of the Arabic traditions of retaliation and restitution, Aslan perceives Islam as focused on community, inclusiveness (equality) and love. Mohammad, as Aslan describes, extended the Arab concept of tribe as the fundamental organizing unit of society, to be a “neo-tribe” that “because neither ethnicity or culture nor race nor kinship had any significance to Muhammad, the Ummah (tribe), unlike a traditional tribe, had an almost unlimited capacity for growth through conversion.” With regard to traditional tribal concepts of retribution, Mohammad’s revelation of the Word of God as written in the Qur’an states, “The retribution for an injury is an equal injury, but those who forgive the injury and make reconciliation will be rewarded by God.” The community of Islam was being created on the basis of moral and egalitarian ideals. These positive attributes are overshadowed in the past several hundred years by colonialism, Western evangelization (of culture and religion and faith), which does not recognize the combination of Arabic tribes and Muslim community perspectives. Western installed and supported tribal leaders have only force by which to maintain legitimacy. BUT, Aslan does not provide a one-sided argument. He clearly states the failure of Islam to evolve into the Modern world is the result of its theology being controlled by a small group of clerics, who position themselves as the only credible interpreters of the Qur’an. They are responsible for making the body politic subservient to the religion of Islam. This is not consistent with Mohammad’s teachings, or the Qur’an. While Aslan perceives Islam to be in a prolonged period of reformation, today, he notes the conflict between the role of a Caliphate as defined by Mohammad being limited to secular functions, and the role of clerics being limited to religious functions. Until this internal conflict is resolved, globally, there will be splinter groups who claim power in the name of Islam. A very valuable perspective on the world today.

In the spirit of full disclosure I read Asian's other book, Zealot, before reading this book. In Zealot he had numerous citations, the documentation of which comprised about 30% of the book. This is a well-written piece and gives an excellent history of Islam. I feel that he was easier on Islam than he was on Christianity. He makes statements about the universal condemnation of violent Islamic sects, but makes no effort to cite any source. Also through out the book Asian uses phrases such as "... In the words of...” or " found in XXX's excellent history of..." with out citation. This made me weary of the accuracy of the book. On the other hand he lays out a history of Islam, if he is to be taken for his word, which is detailed and far-reaching. I found this both entertaining and enlightening. I would recommend this book to any one who is interested in the history of the development of Islam and it's present day state. I feel, even with my concerns about the lack of documentation for his quotes, that I have a much better understanding of Islam. Asian has an easy to read style that kept me engaged. I believe that this book is worth the time and effort to read it.

Raza Aslan is an American convert to Islam and in this book he gives a critical account of the inception and development of this great Faith. We learn of the origins of the Faith in an area of disparate tribes each with their own god or gods including Jesus and Moses. How Mohammed, a veteran merchant, received a series of visions demanding he become God's Messenger first to the tribes then the world. His simple messages were those of support to the common people of Mecca who were exploited by a single dominant money grabbing tribe. His teachings finally forced him and his followers to flee to a desert oasis to escape certain death. Years later he would return to Mecca in triumph and receive the keys of the Holy Qa'aba.. His message, and regime, were just and merciful, respectful to women and quickly adopted outside the Arabian Peninsula. Aslan makes the telling point that prophets seldom create a religion, it evolves from the original teachings after they die via disciples and their original Faith is distorted by power seekers with myths and additions. One has only to look at Christianity to see this happen in another evolving Faith. Despite claims made about it The Koran is a wonderful book of Faith with no mention of Sha'aria Law, subjugation of women, wearing of the Burka, or stoning of alleged deviants from the Faith. Aslan also explains the true nature of Jihad which is far from that advocated by Moslem fanatics. It is interesting to note that The Koran does not advocate starting a war against any other group. Rather only fight them in defence if they attack first. As the story continues we learn of both the good and bad points of evolved Islam to the present day. In view of the current wave of lies and Neo Fascist propaganda directed against Islam which, like Christianity has many variants this book is a welcome addition to the positive side of the Faith past and present. Aslan pulls no punches nor seeks to justify the current waves of Islamic terrorism but makes an excellent case for the millions of Moslems who follow a peaceful path. One cannot help wondering what Mohammed, or Jesus would think about the terrible crimes committed in their names by some followers. Frankly when it comes to atrocities Christianity's score sure beats that of Islam. The Crusades, Witch and Heretic burnings, The Congo under Leopold, The Holocaust, IRA, Basque, and Catalan bombings, Bosnia, Kosovo........Great tree trunks in Christian eyes..

...you should definitely read this book. I'm a life-long history buff, but somehow I'd never gotten around to reading any Middle Eastern history until I picked up this fascinating book. Dr. Aslan brings both an American eye and a Muslim heart to the story of the history and current state of his religion, Islam, thus making its crazy-quilt history perfectly accessible and understandable to the rest of us. He clearly loves his religion, as any religionist should, and thus writes eloquently regarding its beauties, but at the same time he is certainly not blind to its many flaws, its internal contradictions, and its endless conflicts. Now I now understand what the heck's going on with the Shi'a vs. the Sunnis, and why everyone seems to love to oppress and murder Sufis, and why the Saudis hate the Iranians hate the Egyptians hate the British (etc. etc. etc.). What a mess, huh? And yet, as Aslan points out quite persuasively, the mess that is Islam today, almost 1,500 years into its history, is precisely the sort of mess Christianity was in about 1,500 years into its history. Aslan's closing thoughts on Islam and democracy are particularly fascinating. While Islamophobes never tire of dismissing Middle Eastern nations as incapable of democracy, quite the opposite is in fact the case. What they perhaps are incapable of is American-style democracy...but why should it be otherwise? They're not America. The majority of middle eastern Muslims yearn for democracy, but they want it to be Islamic in its sensibilities, just as so many American Christians want American democracy to have a Christian ethos, while secularists want it to be secular. If we really believe in democracy (and I, for one, really really do), we should trust it to be able to work within most any world view. The key to making democracy work is pluralism. And in its purest form (untainted by the sickness of the Taliban, Wahhabism, and the like) Islam is an inherently more pluralist religion than Christianity has ever been...which makes me, a devout Christian, blush to have to admit. This book is likely to expand your horizons. And the icing on the cake is that it is wonderfully written; like all good history it's an amazing action adventure story. Enjoy.

I had seen this book for years and while I always wanted to fill in my gap in understanding around Islam, I was daunted by its size and density. Turn the clock ahead a few years and I wind up picking up and reading Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan and saw him on the Daily Show a few times to boot. Eventually the dots connect and I realize that this was Reza's first book. Doh! So I grabbed it for my Kindle (where the size and density are at least masked) and have enjoyed it quite a bit. Reza is a born storyteller and this book really is at its best when he is telling the story of Muhammad and his journey and the events that followed his death. Though it is not Reza's intent, reading the story of Islam following the death of Muhammad is like reading about a train wreck in slow motion - a slowly unfolding series of events that fractured and politicized a religion in shockingly little time. Reza is originally from Iran and fled to the US with his family following the revolution that deposed the Shah. He was an avowed atheist for many years before coming back to his religion. While he doesn't evince the radical fervor of the converted, he does have a genuine heartfelt love for Islam that informs his writing. That said, I cannot judge whether his Iranian background in any way has "prejudiced" this account. It certainly FEELS like Reza is working mightily to be even-handed and factual. That said, Reza clearly abhors the political radicalization that has permeated much of Islam. He is clear that the true values of Islam do not support this turn. He is also clearly attracted to the passionate mysticism of the Sufis, something that Westerners like myself will appreciate, but may offend more traditional Muslims. If you liked Zealot and felt you learned something from it, then I heartily recommend this book. Islam's history is complex and frankly confusing, but Reza does a heroic job in sorting things out.

This book is a fascinating read. Starting with the pre-Islamic Arabia, it traces the evolution of Islam all the way to the recent popular pro-democracy uprisings in the middle east - the updated edition that is. Along the way, it marries history with erudite commentary, answers a few dogmatic points of views, & raises, rather honestly, quite a few questions. Quite a good many of the chapters dwell on the rise of Islam in the desert of the Arabian peninsula, the life of Muhammad & its strife, the power struggles after Muhammad's death, the expansion of Islam to far away corners beyond its humble Arab origins, & the consolidation of the ways & practices into codified religion. It further does a great job of articulating both the evolution & description, if not definition, of the various sects - namely the Sunni, the Shia, & the Sufi. The tales continue into the modern nineteenth, twentieth & twenty first centuries - the story of Iran is a gripping one - & the book continues its journey into the many ideological branches that evolved in this period - the politics of Islam at battle with colonialism & a fast modernizing world, & the divergent pulls of reformist agendas against fundamentalist ones. Finally, the author speculates a little on the future of Islam, its diaspora in the western world with deep connections to each other & the larger community using the internet. For me, the chapters on what defines a Muslim, to the extent possible, & the related symbolism of such practices was an eye-opener. Refreshing, & reinvigorating too, was the chapter on the Sufi - I think the author deliberately changed the tone of his writing in this chapter to sound more mystical - as was the content & commentary on the evolution of the Shia sect, its beliefs & symbols. I do think, however, that the author must have had a hard time choosing content from the colonial past to the current times that he thought were integral to the story of development of Islam. The story of Iran finds great resonance while the subcontinent's mention is definitely much more measured - middle-eastern developments & schools of thought being the mainstay of this story. That is not to say that the story is not a credible one, but I'd have thought that the subcontinent's history would have found more utterance than it did in the larger story of Islam. I may be biased, though. I'd recommend this book very highly to anyone interested in a balanced, honest & unapologetic history of Islam. @souvikstweets

Dr. Reza Aslan's knowledge of the subject matter is profound, to say the least. In a book so engaging and heart-felt, No God but God delivers the unthinkable: a truly balanced, perceptive portrayal of a topic we thought we have understood for so long. In a little over 300 pages, Aslan gives readers a chance to understand Islam in the lens that it is supposed to be understood: through the religious, societal, and cultural context dictated through the Prophethood of Muhammad and the community of followers he left behind. Currently, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of books covering these topics, but in a closed vacuum. They analyze Islam's message and its catalyst through a meticulous framework that tries to bring the essence of the faith into modern times; however, an approach such as this fails to acknowledge the dimensions of what truly propelled the Islamic faith. Providing a literary work so intertwined with the origins of Islam, Aslan shows you what it was like living with Muhammad, watching his every move, dissecting his every action. He shows you the rifts of the caliphate and their perpetual struggle to redefine the religion. He shows you, in summation, the heart of Islam. While I rarely give reviews for any book, especially about Islam--due to the lack of holistic methods needed to analyze a religion the size of Islam--I whole-heartedly recommend this book to any reader regardless of whether you are a Muslim or not, a Middle East expert or not, even a researcher or not. A celebrated accomplishment by one of most renowned writers on Islam, No God but God has even provided the structural backbone and inspiration for my own book about Islam. A must-read for all, it is the pinnacle of journalistic work in a topic so intimately connected with our lives.

The history of the middle east is defeatingly complicated. Since WWI, western statesmen, scholars, historians, and anthropologists have held widely different views, and that muddled knowledge when it reached the policy-making level has to led to mistake after mistake thru the centuries by western powers. So many straight lines to define national borders after WW1 (there are no such lines), and the tribal systems of government then simply had something else to fight about. In the pre-Islamist era, before Mohammad (570 AD), the people believed in all kinds of deities, depending on their geographies, nomadic or sedentary. Empires and dynasties rose and fell, their frontiers elastic, ruling systems wildly divergent depending the character of the ruler. Then came the life and visions of Mohammed, Islam and the one God, then the death of the Prophet, then the centuries after. Mohammad had not committed to writing any instructions that Allah had relayed to him in his visions, and thereafter thousands of interpreters of Islam have had a field day. But withal, Islam, in all its manifestations, spread rapidly either by sword or by proselytism to what we see today, and the Imams are still busy. If you want to understand Islam and the Middle East, good luck. I found No God but God to be a fine history. It's well written, an exemplary vocabulary, an amazing cast of names, and you will recognize some of the names if you were born between1930 and1980. Congratulations to the author Reza Aslan for including a glossary, summaries of each chapter with notes for further reading, books and articles consulted, and an index. This could could been a 1000+ page book. But it wasn't. I would have given the book 4 1/2 stars but that wasn't possible.

Excelente libro para conocer más sobre el islam, escrito con claridad por un autor musulmán, aunque la conclusión final sea que el islam ha utilizado la violencia desde su inicio, contra ellos y contra los demás y que sus bases fundamentales son cuestionables (por decirlo de una manera suave).

This book is all I was looking for. The evolution of Islam, from the end of caliphate to the formation of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the developement of law and theology, the Iran revolution and the role of Islam and Muslims in the nineteenth and twentieth century anti colonial movements, discovering heroes like Dr. Ali Shariati, Jamal al din al Afghani, Hasan al banna, Syed Qutb, Maulana Maududi (not my hero) and Syed Ahmed Khan and how their principles and ideas are leading modern Muslim societies. As far as origin is concerned, Reza Aslan present interesting view, earlier I was aware only about social and cultural dimension of daur e jahilliya, Reza is looking at the religions of daur e Jahilliya from paganism to Judaism, Christianity and hanifism (I read about them for very first time) and their intersection. Reza argued that Muslim countries sooner or later will develop into democracies which will ofcourse be different from American model and will be based upon the Medinian model and on the prophet Muhammad's principles of egalitarian society. Meanwhile Reza Aslan is my current favourite.

This book really helped me understand what is happening in Islam. Every muslim should read it because it's a very good start for any healty debate about Islam.

Easy to read, complete, it explains how Islam was born, how it evolved, how it was divided in several branches, and how we got to today's situation and troubles. Plus: the author comes from an Islamic background (and is a Muslim himself), so we have an "inside" vision of the matter. Well worth the purchase.

Es interesante saber él origen y evolución a través del tiempo del Islam. Un pasado caótico lleno de violencia,sangre y mal interpretación y también ver su cambio ahora con las redes sociales.