Aslan argues that Muhammad, born in the last half of the sixth century, would have been influenced as a young man by the religious landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia (17). Faith in GOD and dedication is the Way to succeed. But that day will no doubt come. By the ninth century, when Islamic law was being fashioned, there were so many false hadith circulating through the community that Muslim legal scholars somewhat whimsically classified them into two categories: lies told for material gain and lies told for ideological advantage. God resembles nothing in either essence or attributes., Muhammads example must have had a lasting effect on his early followers: as Nabia Abbott has shown, throughout the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims regularly read the Torah alongside the Quran., Consider, for example, how the following verse (4:34) regarding the obligations of men toward women has been rendered into English by two different but widely read contemporafirst is from the Princeton edition, translated by Ahmed Ali; the second is from Majid Fakhrys translation, published by New York University: But returning home after one of his painfully violent revelatory experiences, or after suffering another indignity from the Qurayshhis head covered in dirt, his tunic defiled with bloodand not having Khadija there to wrap him in her cloak and hold him in her arms until the terror subsided must have been an unimaginable sorrow for the Prophet., Yet lost in the debate about Americas true intentions in the Middle East was the fact that large majorities in every Muslim-majority state surveyed told pollsters they wanted to see their countries move toward greater democracy. A religious state of Islamic orientation also most likely would be rife with internal struggles, since there has never been a successful attempt to establish a monolithic interpretation of the meaning and significance of Islamic beliefs and practices (265). BrothersJudd reviews vary significantly in style and length, focusing more on the individual reviewers personal opinion of the title and only a cursory plot summary. What a conflicting review to have to write. There is no god but God may refer to: The beginning of the shahada, the Muslim profession of faith Tawhid, the Muslim concept of the oneness and uniqueness of God No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, a 2005 book about Islam by Reza Aslan A Bill Kenny song sung by Elvis Presley on the album He Touched Me (album) A democratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy. The story he tells begins in the Arabian desert during the pre-Islamic era of the sixth century AD. Sites with a book review or quick commentary on No god but God by Reza Aslan. That is the reader's key to this fascinating account of the origins and development of Islam. Religion is the story of faith., But what is most desperately needed is not so much a better appreciation of our neighbors religion as a broader, more complete understanding of religion itself., Like so many prophets before him, Muhammad never claimed to have invented a new religion. Resources for Greater Impact: Faith is a way of moving and being in the world; religion is a body of traditions and practices and institutions that preserve the story of how to move and be in the world that way. Our Bible study class decided we wanted to learn something about Muslims. This is my angur! cried the Persian. the text of islam. There is no God but one, and He is Jesus" (349). All of a sudden, the men realized that what each of them had desired was in fact the same thing, only they did not know how to express themselves to each other. We are all living in it., Today, Medina is simultaneously the archetype of Islamic democracy and the impetus for Islamic militancy. This article first appeared in the Viewpoint column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 45, Este artculo es una exclusiva en lnea de Christian Research Journal. are 1 Short Summary and 7 Book Reviews. Nabeel concludes: "There is no God but one, and He is Father, Spirit, and Son. . The hadith, insofar as they addressed issues not dealt with in the Quran, would become an indispensable tool in the formation of Islamic law. For example, one chapter is entirely devoted to the controversial, because often misinterpreted, issue of jihad, while others on the Ottoman Empire, the formation of al Qaeda, and so continuing in chronological order up to Osama bin Laden. Contrary to popular perception in the West, Islam is a religion firmly rooted in the prophetic traditions of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. An astounding work. In order to speak to new generations, traditions adapt, but faith is eternal. No God but One: Allah or Jesus? Dr. Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is author most recently of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Muhammads Companions (those who had lived and worked closely with him) assumed rule, and their oral pronouncements were loosely codified in a series of haditha, a grab bag of rules and regulations that by the ninth century were subject to radically differing interpretations exploited by competing claimants to Islamic purity. A two-page chronology marks key events from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in 570 up to Al-Qaedas attack on New York and Washington in 2001 (pp. FreeBookNotes found 8 sites with book summaries or analysis of No god but God. Publishers Weekly reviews vary in length, with all focusing on a synopsis of the book and a look at the quality of writing. The book describes the history of Islam and argues for a liberal interpretation of the religion. Each chapter of the book deals with a specific topic within Islam. No! Reza Aslan shows a snapshot of Islam from its origin to its evolution. Give the coin to me, he said. Of course, such a process takes time. True, there is only one God, but that is just the beginning. Sunni and Shiites had always been merely exotic names but for the first time I could understand why these groups might despise each other all these centuries later. This would be compelling if 1) he ever returns to this argument in any sustained fashion later in the book and 2) if he understood the Reformation as anything more than a violent religious response to modernity that threw off authority. This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 30, number 3 (2007). Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. He blames Western imperialism and the misinterpretations of Islamic law by past scholars for the current controversies within Islam, questioning the clash of civilizations thesis that peoples cultural and religious identity will be the primary source of world conflict in the post Cold War era. Thus, with each successive generation, the chain of transmission, or isnad, that was supposed to authenticate the hadith grew longer and more convoluted, so that in less than two centuries after Muhammads death, there were already some seven hundred thousand hadith being circulated throughout the Muslim lands, the great majority of which were unquestionably fabricated by individuals who sought to legitimize their own particular beliefs and practices by connecting them with the Prophet. arabic name for the city of medina. . . I also thought it shameful the glancing way he wrote about Sept. 11. He is the copy of God, in the words of al-Arabis greatest disciple, Abdul Karim al-Jili: he is the mirror in which the divine attributes are perfectly reflected; the medium through which God is made manifest., More than a thousand years before Christ, Zarathustra preached the existence of a heaven and a hell, the idea of a bodily resurrection, the promise of a universal savior who would one day be miraculously born to a young maiden, and the expectation of a final cosmic battle that would take place at the end of time between the angelic forces of good and the demonic forces of evil., It is a shame that this word, myth, which originally signified nothing more than stories of the supernatural, has come to be regarded as synonymous with falsehood, when in fact myths are always true. This is a major attraction that Christianity has for me. This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 44, number 2 (2021). At university he was converted to Islam because of its visible action on behalf of a class of oppressed people. We make no distinction between any of them; we submit ourselves to God., Manichaeism, the doctrine founded by the Prophet Mani, was a Gnostic religious movement heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism which preached a complex, radical dualism between the forces of darkness/evil and the forces of light/good.. He envisions a courtyard roofed in palm leaves, with living quarters made of wood and mud lining the walls. As an academic, I know how distressingly rare it is to find an writer with strong scholarly chops and an accessible writing voice. Even presuming the raft of hostile orientalists he draws from represented the most neutral and authoritative of western scholarship on Islam, the author's own tone and framing make it needlessly more odious. You will have a direct line to ASH, for any questions you have: you will only be one email away from ASH. Do read the book. Tight composition, fast pacing, authoritative tone: it's no surprise it was a bestseller. The reviewer describes their feelings about the story and characters along with a brief plot summary. First, the historical narrative Aslan presents is engaging, informative, eminently readable, and, under close scrutiny, fairly reliable. I witness that Muhammad is His messenger. GoodReads community and editorial reviews can be helpful for getting a wide range of opinions on various aspects of the book. Yet regardless of whether one is labeled a Modernist or a Traditionalist, a reformist or a fundamentalist, a feminist or a, must recognize that greater knowledge about Islam is not enough to alter peoples perceptions of Muslims. Myth typically includes miracles, and heroic portrayals of people involved. -- who casually overturned some of Mohammad's famously moderate teachings after he died, by claiming they'd heard Mohammad say otherwise. This timetable reflects Aslans desire to educate non-Muslim Westerners about Islam in the wake of 9/11. We are all living in it. According to Ibn Rushd, religion simplifies the truth for the masses by resorting to easily recognizable signs and symbols, regardless of the doctrinal contradictions and rational incongruities that inevitably result from the formation and rigid interpretation of dogma. a. sound-switch. That year, 622 C.E., will forever be known as Year 1 A.H. (After Hijra); and the oasis that for centuries had been called Yathrib will henceforth be celebrated as Medinat an-Nabi: The City of the Prophet, or more simply, Medina., The Shiah believe that salvation requires the intercession of Muhammad, his son-in-law Ali, his grandsons Hasan and Husayn, and the rest of the Prophets legitimate successors, the Imams, who not only serve as humanitys intercessors on the Last Days, but who further function as the eternal executors (wali) of the divine Revelation., The word Imam has multiple connotations. Come to prayer, come to prayer. From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that calls into question everything we thought we knew about Jesus of Nazareth. His books include No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (published 2005) and How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror (published 2009). This led to a series of increasingly violent clashes between Muhammad and his entourage and the Quraysh. BlogCritics reviews use emotional language to describe the feel and content of the book, relying on colorful language and an informal tone. "Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. One thing that came as a surprise to me was that Muhammad, like Jesus, did appreciate women and their contributions. It is a must read! It strikes me that all the various factions of Islam that developed (which Aslan over optimistically describes as conveying a wonderful cultural and spiritual diversity, conveniently ignoring the bloodshed), were all striving to arrive at what Mohammad really meant, the real Islam. A two-page chronology marks key events from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in 570 up to Al-Qaeda's attack on New York and Washington in 2001 (pp. The narrative begins in seventh-century Arabia, where the Prophet Muhammad set out to create a society based on social egalitarianism and equality of the sexes. Overall a very good book on Islam. Second, the book is devoted mostly to historical documentation. No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam (Reza Aslam), Quran Interpretations of the COVID19 Pandemic, The rainbow, a Sign of Peace in the Bible, A must-read book for anyone who is not only interested in learning more about the world of Islam in the past and nowadays, but also for all those who seek the historical truth of facts through the path of the, Each chapter of the book deals with a specific topic within Islam. A must-read book for anyone who is not only interested in learning more about the world of Islam in the past and nowadays, but also for all those who seek the historical truth of facts through the path of the Abrahamic religions. Islamic Modernists like the Egyptian writer and political philosopher Ali Abd ar-Raziq (d. 1966) pointed to Muhammads community in Medina as proof that Islam advocated the separation of religious and temporal power, while Muslim extremists in Afghanistan and Iran have used the same community to fashion various models of Islamic theocracy. . After a few generations, almost anything could be given the status of hadith if one simply claimed to trace its transmission back to Muhammad.
