This book helped me a lot in understanding sunni, shia and sufi islam

books:

	• No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam Reza Aslan Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 121 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Accessible and a good read

I picked this book up in Jerusalem of all places and finished it before my trip was over just a few days later. The book is super accessible, well written, and reads as if written by a journalist (in the good sense). For someone who has tried to read the Koran and failed (same with the bible), this book gives a non-religious minded reader a great summary of early Islamic history as depicted in the Koran, but has chapters on all the major divisions (Sunni, Shia, and my favorite Sufism). It also briefly touches on the thousand years of history following the Prophet's death.

From my view, Aslan tends to give the subject matter a rosey view and perhaps is looking too much to European history & social transformation as a guide (he claims Islam is currently undergoing its own reformation, similar to the one that Martin Luther started)to the future of Islam, the book is still a good read. Specially for those who have never read or know little about Islam and the region.

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An ambitious work that largely succeeds...

Reza Aslan has written a scholarly and quite readable one volume history of Islam that barely exceeds 250 pages. Naturally such a brief treatment must omit some of the nuances. Aslan is an Iranian emigrant, fleeing Khomeini's revolution, in 1979, and is now a respected American academic. Being of Iranian origins, he is of the Shia sect, which represents only 15% of Muslims worldwide. Concerning the predominant split in Islam, between Sunnis and Shia, I believe he gave a very even-handed account of its origins, starting on the plains of Karbala. As a very rough first approximation, for a Christian, the split is similar to the one that divides Catholics from Protestants.

In the prologue Aslan amply indicates the critical need for a dispassionate review of Islam, by quoting the past president of the Southern Baptist Convention who called the Prophet Muhammad "a demon-possessed pedophile," and Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, and spiritual advisor to George W. Bush, who publicly called Islam "an evil and wicked religion." Useful quotes to recall when a person is accusing Islam of "intolerance." Also in the prologue, Aslan makes a statement that could be true of all religions (and virtually all political movements): "...it is possible to trace how Muhammad's revolutionary message of moral accountability and social egalitarianism was gradually reinterpreted by his successors into competing ideologies of rigid legalism and uncompromising orthodoxy, which fractured the Muslim community..."

In the first half of the book Aslan presents a succinct summary of the origins of Islam, placing it within the context of the social conditions in 7th Century Arabia. He covers the Prophet Muhammad's life, as well as his first four successors, "the rightly guided ones," all of whom personally knew him, and three of whom were to die a violent death. It was with the fifth Caliph, Mu'awiyah that a major change occurred, when he commenced the Umayyad Dynasty, and the Caliph became a king also. Aslan devotes two chapters to "hot button" issues, in terms of Western understanding of Islam: one is on the position of women, the other on "jihad," which has been variously interpreted to mean "war" or "internal struggle." As part of another chapter he also discusses the "hot button" issue of "democracy" in the Islamic world, and, in part, depicts its origins in the Shura councils.

The author also has interesting chapters on the Shia, as well as the Sufis, the later chapter is entitled "Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine." For Americans, as well as other Westerners, who wonder "why these Muslims are so angry at us," when we are just sitting here minding our own business, Aslan has an excellent chapter on the history of Western imperialism in the Muslim lands, entitled "An Awaking in the East." Among the various reasons why Muslims might have some grievances, he quotes from Sir Charles Trevelyan, a one-time British governor of Madras, who said his principal goal was "nothing short of the conversion of the natives to Christianity." He also quotes Lord Cromer, the British consul general to Egypt, who used the veil as a symbol for the "degradation of women" by Islam, which served as justification for Europe's "civilizing mission" in the Middle East. Aslan also covers the joint support of the United States and Saudi Arabia for Osama bin Laden, quite pleased with a fundamentalist brand of Islam when it was fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Equally, Aslan reminds us of another episode in our history we'd prefer to forget, when the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta gave Saddam Hussein much of the material he used in his biological weapons. (Aslan's assertions are properly footnoted.)

As of this writing, there have been 15 1&2-star reviews of this book, many of them thoughtful. One of the central themes is that Aslan depicts one particular position as the only possibility, without indicating opposing opinions or schools of thoughts and I tend to agree. In other places he makes assertions that are not adequately defended. The last chapter is wittedly entitled "Slouching Toward Medina," in which he discusses the reformation now occurring in Islamic thought. He concludes the chapter thusly: "It will take many more to cleanse Islam of its new false idols--bigotry and fanaticism--worshipped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformations is already here. We are all living in it." When reading Aslan's optimistic conclusion, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Didn't I once read similarly optimistic predictions on how America was changing for the better, in the late `60's, in books like Roszak's "The Making of a Counter Culture," and Reich's "The Greening of America"? I hope Aslan is right, but it is worthwhile to consider how similar optimistic antecedents were dashed, and were made just as America moved into a 30 plus year period of conservative rollback to social and economic reform. Overall, a 4-star effort, that should be read in all American schools.

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Book about Islam finally makes its history and culture clear!

No god but God is a rare combination of great detail and fascinating reading, two sets of words rarely found in the same sentence about any book. Prior to reading this book, for westerners like me, understanding Islam and its people seemed difficult to impossible.

Separating (but relating) religion, culture, and the desires of individual people, No god but God makes clear the point that Islam (the tenets of the faith as expressed in the Koran) is no more responsible for the terrorism often inflicted in its name than Christianity and the teachings of the Bible are responsible for the holocaust. Islam and Christianity are drawn clearly to be a code of faith and the behavior of their followers does not inform the Koran, rather the faith, both Islam and Christianity (and others) often becomes corrupted for the personal ambition and gain of individuals and peoples.

No god but God traces how this has happened within Islam, the conditions that have led to the rise of extremism, and leaves the reader with a deeper understanding both of Islam and of the people who claim to be its adherants.

Three weeks after reading this book, I attended a local mosque open house to learn more. The lectures and exhibits at the (moderate) mosque reflected No god but God's evidences and conclusions perfectly. Recommended reading!

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This book helped me a lot in understanding sunni, shia and sufi islam

This book helped me a lot in understanding sunni, shia and sufi islam. If you want to approach these subjects as a beginner than this book is a good place to start.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Though it is the fastest-growing religion in the world, Islam remains shrouded in ignorance and fear for much of the West. In No god but God, Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed scholar of religions, explains this faith in all its beauty and complexity. Beginning with a vivid account of the social and religious milieu in which the Prophet Muhammad forged his message, Aslan paints a portrait of the first Muslim community as a radical experiment in religious pluralism and social egalitarianism. He demonstrates how, after the Prophet?s death, his successors attempted to interpret his message for future generations?an overwhelming task that fractured the Muslim community into competing sects. Finally, Aslan examines how, in the shadow of European colonialism, Muslims developed conflicting strategies to reconcile traditional Islamic values with the realities of the modern world, thus launching what Aslan terms the Islamic Reformation. Timely and persuasive, No god but God is an elegantly written account of a magnificent yet misunderstood faith.

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