Aslan - No god but god: the Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

Praise for
No god but God

Precise acutely perceptive a revelation,
an opening up of knowledge too long buried.

The Independent (U.K.)

[Reza Aslan] is among a growing number of Muslim writers and intellectuals born or educated in the West who bring a rare intimacy, born of experience, to their analysis of Islam in the world, and can also translate it into terms comprehensible to their Western readers.

P ANKAJ M ISHRA , The New York Review of Books

Just the history of Islam I needed, judicious and truly illuminating.

A. S. B YATT in The Guardian (U.K.)

Thought-provoking At this fateful juncture, Aslan has provided a masterful interpretative reading of Islam.

The Globe and Mail

Sympathetic engaging sensitive and generous.

Financial Times

Fun to read [Brings] each successive century to life with the kind of vivid details and like-you-were-there, present-tense narration that makes popular history popular. An excellent overview that doubles as an impassioned call to reform.

Booklist

A lively and accessible introduction to Islam Readers will gravitate toward No god but God not only because of its stimulating arguments, but also because its so well put together as a literary work. As evocative as it is provocative.

Kirkus Reviews

This is a fascinating book. Reza Aslan tells the story of Islam with one eye on faith and another on history. The result is a textured, nuanced account that presents a living, breathing religion shaped by centuries of history and culture.

F AREED Z AKARIA ,
author of The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad

Elegant, accessible, and informed by historical scholarship, No god but God offers a wonderful view into the rich world of early Islam. Reza Aslan brings to the life of Muhammad and the story of classical Islam a lyricism and deft touch reminiscent of Roberto Calasso at his best.

N OAH F ELDMAN ,
author of After Jihad and What We Owe Iraq

Reza Aslan tells a story of Islamic faith, history and culture that comes alive. No god but God is an engaging, creative, insightful, and provocative book. It is a reminder that beyond the terrorism headlines, Islam, like its Abrahamic cousins, has been and remains a rich, dynamic spiritual path for the vast majority of its adherents.

J OHN L. E SPOSITO ,
University Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding, Georgetown University, and author of Unholy War

A fascinating account of Islams evolution. Aslans book should be required reading for all analysts and policymakers interested in the Muslim world. Its a terrific readno easy feat for such a difficult subject.

S TEVEN C OOK ,
Next Generation Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Reza Aslan counters superficial notions of a clash of civilizations with a deep and exhilarating exploration of the fifteen-hundred-year-old clash within the civilization of Islam. Distinguishing concepts like faith and religion, Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism, in ways that shed vital new light on the mornings headlines, No god but God is a passionate argument for the shared history of the worlds religions. An essential contribution to the most important issue of our time.

T OM R EISS ,
author of The Orientalist

Also by Reza Aslan

Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism
in the Age of Globalization
(originally published as How to Win a Cosmic War)

2011 Random House Trade Paperback Edition

Copyright 2005, 2006, 2011 by Reza Aslan
Maps copyright 2011 by David Lindroth, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE T RADE P APERBACKS and colophon are
trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005 and subsequently in trade paperback by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2006 in slightly different form.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aslan, Reza.
No god but God : the origins, evolution, and future of Islam / Reza Aslan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64377-7
1. Islam. 2. IslamEssence, genius, nature. 3. IslamHistory. I. Title.

BP161.3.A79 2005
297dc22 2004054053

www.atrandom.com

Cover design: Anna Bauer, based on the original design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph: Nabeel Turner/Getty Images

v3.1

For my mother, Soheyla,

and my father, Hassan

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for never doubting me; Catherine Bell, for getting me started; Frank Conroy, for giving me a shot; Elyse Cheney, for finding me; Daniel Menaker, for trusting me; Amanda Fortini, for fixing me; my teachers, for challenging me; and Ian Werrett, for absolutely everything else.

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

T EN YEARS AFTER the attacks of 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all-time high throughout Europe and North America, far higher than it was in the immediate aftermath of that tragic day in 2001. Polls show that nearly half the populations in the United States and Canada hold unfavorable views toward Islam. In Europe, the passage of laws curtailing the rights and freedoms of Muslims and the success of avowedly anti-Muslim politicians and political parties have led to an even greater sense of marginalization and disenfranchisement among Muslim communities.

Many reasons have been given to explain this sudden surge in anti-Muslim hysteria. Certainly the global financial crisis has played a role. In times of economic distress, it is only natural for people to look for a scapegoat upon whom to thrust their fears and anxieties. In many parts of Europe and North America, fear of Islam goes hand in hand with larger concerns over immigration and the increasingly borderless, increasingly heterogeneous world in which we live.