Religion, it must be understood, is not faith. Religion is the story of faith. It 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. Rather, sacred history is like a hallowed tree whose roots dig deep into primordial time and whose branches weave in and out of genuine history with little concern for the boundaries of space and time. Indeed, it is precisely at those moments when sacred and genuine history collide that religions are born.
Wow! So, with this Reza Aslan looks into the origins of Islam. He does so with respect, understanding and a belief that religion is shaped by the socio-politics of the time; how could it not be after all?
1: The Sanctuary in the Desert - Pre-Islamic Arabia
Aslan looks at the Zamzam spring and posits that the Ka'ba could have been placed next to it as a spring in the middle of a desert is a wondrous thing for the bedouins. For Arabs it was considered the axis mundi, the naval of the world, but there have been many of these around the world including the pyramids of Egypt and the Easter Island Moai figures. The multiple different religions and gods of the Arabian peninsula were celebrated here and this was know as the Jahiliyyah or 'The Time of Ignorance'.
However, Aslan argues that this simplifies the beliefs of the time with a paganism brush, something that is not uniform but rather quite fluid for different people including fetishism, totemism to manism (ancestor cults)- there was not a uniform single belief.
Allah was originally an ancient rain/sky deity, similar to Zeus, who was the most supreme being to pre-Islamic Arabs. Like the Greek pantheon, there were lesser gods including his three daughters, Allat (‘the goddess’), al-Uzza (‘the mighty’), and Manat (‘the goddess of fate’). The Kahins were soothsayers, made up of men and women across different socio-economic groups, who acted as intermediaries and could speak to jinns and spirits... for a fee, of course. Their readings were cryptic and it was up to people to interpret the meaning.
In the Ka'ba, although Allah was considered the King of the Gods, he was not represented by any figures but there was a Syrian deity called Hubal, who took pride of place. This belief in Henotheism, the belief in a single High God without rejecting the existence of other subordinate gods, meant that Judaism and Christianity were represented in the Ka'ba. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Aaron were important to all three of these Abrahamic faiths and there was an intermingling of ideas and concepts, especially since the Babylonian Exile a thousand years earlier, Rome’s sacking of the Temple in Jerusalem and the various waves of migration. However, when the first Council at Nicaea in 325 C.E. declared Jesus to be ‘fully God’ and the Council at Chalcedon in 451 C.E. entrenched the doctrine of the Trinity into Christian theology there was an alteration of Henotheism.
The similarities in ideas and concepts between the Bible and the Pagan Muslims were seen as symbols and signs that were familiar and so the accretion of lore built up but a lot of the key concepts and ideas built upon the religion of Zaroastrianism. 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. So far, so Biblical but these concepts predated Christianity by over a thousand years and Judaism by several hundred.
A look back at the 'pure, unadulterated version' of Abraham's teachings grew with Hanifism, a pre-cursor to Islam. There are even several accounts of a Hanifi named Zayd proselytising to a young Muhammed (PBUH) about monotheism and the Abrahamic god. Aslan makes a point that this is not blasphemous or contrary to Islamic teaching as, 'All religions are inextricably bound to the social, spiritual, and cultural milieux from which they arose and in which they developed. It is not prophets who create religions. Prophets are, above all, reformers who redefine and reinterpret the existing beliefs and practices of their communities, providing fresh sets of symbols and metaphors with which succeeding generations can describe the nature of reality.'
Muhammed (PBUH) always said he was a man chosen by God to spread the message but never claimed any divinity, just a message to spread the truth about Allah. Aslan then provides us with a brief overview of Muhammed's (PBUH) life.
2: The Keeper of the Keys - Muhammed in Mecca
We next get a look at the power structures within Mecca and how guardianship of the Ka'ba, a pilgrimage site for many in the Arabian peninsula, was linked to trade and wealth. It was an important religio-economic zone but was by no means more noteworthy than other cities which were more central to the trading routes. However, the one advantage it did have was that it had a universal sanctuary of the Ka'ba where all gods of the area were represented, something that was significant as the site was worth going out of the way for for many pilgrims, bringing wealth and prosperity for the Quraysh.
Muhammed (PBUH) received the revelation and was told to recite by Allah but he was not yet establishing a new religion, rather he was calling for sweeping social reform. 'He was not yet preaching monotheism; he was demanding economic justice,' states Aslan.
It was only when his religion started to affect the Quraysh bottom line and socio-religious structure that Muhammed (PBUH) became seen as a threat. This came in the form of the Shahadah in 613 CE and the proclamation that there is only one god - polytheism, henotheism, monotheism, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hanifism, paganism in all its varieties were common and familiar but the financial implications of Muhammed’s (PBUH)) message was problematic for them. Adding on the claim to be the new prophet with links to Abraham and all those before him and Muhammed (PBUH) had gained the authority and power rather than been granted it by the Quraysh. We then have the recounting of the death of his uncle and wife and the decision to leave Mecca and spread the message elsewhere.
3: The City of the Prophet - The First Muslims
The chapter covers the Hijra, the secret exodus of the companions leaving Mecca and following Mohammed (PBUH) to Yathrib, a small community. The community grew and Medina came to represent the model of Islamic perfection - it has been embraced by a diverse group and so has become all things to all people but there are obvious disparities in thought.
What was created was radically new kind of social organization with a neo-tribe not linked by genealogy but a faith in the Shahadah, which led to a new religion with social and economic reform. The egalitarian principles rankled some who were hierarchically minded as many thought they were more privileged than others and his declaration on a ban on usury, equality of men and women, zakat and rules of law were highly controversial for the time.
After the prophet passed, the chain of transmission became more convoluted with each passing generation and some of the 70, 000 hadiths said to have come from Muhammed (PBUH). However, according to Aslan many have come from the Torah, Bible, Persian maxims, Indian sayings and even chunks of the Lord's Prayer but all were attributed to the prophet for the material gain of those who claimed their prophetic provenance. This means we have to wade through truthful and manufactured teachings accredited to the prophet, a bit of a problem when it is claimed to be the One True God's will.
4: Fight in the Way of God - The Meaning of Jihad
There is a deep-rooted stereotype of Islam as a warrior religion but a lot of this has its origins in the papal propaganda of the Crusades. Back then, that was the means of territorial expansion but when European colonialists systematically plundered the natural resources of much of the known world somehow their religiously sanctioned violence was spoken of in civilising tones; this is blatant racism.
The term of ‘jihad’ was defined after Muhammed’s (PBUH) death but had been manipulated so the greater and lesser jihad concepts were amalgamated by some to mean 'religious war' but it means an internal, existential struggle to be better.
Over the past century or so, Jihadism has undergone a radical reinterpretation from the original concept of jihad. Aslan states, 'What has for centuries been defined as a collective duty that can be waged solely in defense of life, faith, and property has, in Jihadism, been transformed into a radically individualistic obligation, totally divorced from any institutional power.'
So what we have now is violence committed in the name of Islam without the principles and rules of Islam which categorically state, “Permission to fight is given only to those who have been oppressed … who have been driven from their homes for saying, ‘God is our Lord’” (22:39).
Jihad has turned from a defensive position to an offensive one in the recent past but it wasn't always this way.
Aslan looks at the way the Medina Jews and Muslims interacted and argues that they were both within, ‘The same sphere of religious discourse,' in that both shared the “same religious characters, stories, and anecdotes, both discussed the same fundamental questions from similar perspectives, and both had nearly identical moral and ethical values." Most disagreements were due to interpretation rather than opposing world views.
Muhammed (PBUH) stated that the concept of the Umm al-Kitab (Mother of Books) meant that the Jews, Christians, and Muslims shared a single divine scripture so constituted a single divine Ummah. The Quran states, “Do not argue with the People of the Book—apart from those individuals who act unjustly toward you—unless it is in a fair way” (29:46).
When the Jewish Banu Qurayza were executed it was not due to religious animosity but rather due to their betrayal as they sought to undermine the defence of the Ummah- an agreed punishable sentence that all adhered to. This was not, as some have declared religious persecution as Aslan states, “every Ummah have its own Messenger” (10:47). Thus, to the Jews, God sent the Torah, “which contains guidance and light”; to the Christians, God sent Jesus, who “confirms the Torah”; and finally, to the Arabs, God sent the Quran, which “confirms the earlier revelations.” In this way, the ideological differences among the Peoples of the Book is explained by the Quran as indicating God’s desire to give each people its own “law and path and way of life” (5:42–48).
After his death, many Muslim scriptural and legal scholars of the following centuries changed and manipulated the rules to make it fit in linen with the current situation.
Aslan ends the chapter with Muhammed (PBUH) entering Mecca, clearing out the Ka'ba of the idols and establishing Islam in his place of birth.
5: The Rightly Guided Ones - The Successors to Muhammed
This chapter looks at the death of Muhammed (PBUH) and the power struggle that followed to fill the vacuum left. The Ulama, the 'learned ones' would create the guidance and code of conduct for the believers' life. Aslan discusses the rift creates with Ali and Bakr vying for position of Caliph of the Ummah. Abu Bakr gained the position and his immediate successors—the first four Caliphs - ushered in a golden age and are collectively referred to as the Rashidun, the “Rightly Guided Ones”.
We then get a quick timeline of the centuries afterwards and the nationalism vs universal ummah debate which still persists. Aslan states, "... without either a centralized political authority (like a Caliph) or a centralized religious authority (like a Pope), the only institutions in the modern world that have had any measure of success in uniting the Muslim community under a single banner have been the religious institutions of the Ulama." The Ulama were the keepers of the knowledge of Islam.
6: This Religion is a Science - The Development of Islamic Theology and Law
This chapter looks at the turmoil that such theological questions such as what are the attributes of God, what is free will and what is the nature of the Quran? Is it a created thing which is separate from God’s essence or uncreated meaning the Quran and God are one? What follows is a theological tussle and an inquisition of sorts during the time of Caliph al-Ma’mun.
Aslan states that, "Religions become institutions when the myths and rituals that once shaped their sacred histories are transformed into authoritative models of orthodoxy (the correct interpretation of myths) and orthopraxy (the correct interpretation of rituals), though one is often emphasized over the other." In this way, the 5 pillars were a way to show that you were part of a global community of Muslims.
The chapter also looks at Tawhid and Shirk, in other words what is permissible and what is not. The idea of the unity and oneness of God is considered and the theological conundrums this brings: If God is one are his words one? Did God create good and evil in his oneness? This brings up the Traditionalist vs Rationalist debate.
Aslan also talks about Shariah Law and states, "The Islamic law has not come into being the way conventional law has. It has not had to undergo the same process of evaluation as all the man-made laws have done. The case of the Islamic law is not that it began with a few rules that gradually multiplied or with rudimentary concepts refined by cultural process with the passage of time; nor did this law originate and grow along with the Islamic community with rudimentary concepts refined by cultural process with the passage of time.”
This process, he posits, was shaped not only by local cultural practices but also significantly by Talmudic and Roman law. He says that it is important to understand that, except with the Quran, every other source of Islamic law emerged from human, rather than divine, endeavor. Thus, Aslan argues that there is 'absolutely nothing divine about the Shariah and in no way can it possibly be considered fixed and infallible.'
When we allow faith to dictate history we betray both as we are manipulating both - facts matter and so to say that 'It's God's will' when it was actually based on societal norms and machinations from the time is something we need to consider.
7: In the Footsteps of Martyrs - From Shi'ism to Khomeinism
This chapter looks at the split between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam as the death of Ali and the rise of the Shia is examined. Aslan postulates that "The Prophet transmits the message while the Imam translates it for Humans." It is this difference in the transmission of the message that is central in the ongoing battle between the sects, especially since the belief is that Allah is eternal and infinite, so the Quran is understood as God's eternal word, revealed and manifested in time.
It's all very wobbly wobbly timey wimey stuff but wars have been fought and many people killed over centuries for these specific points and pedantry. The discussion of the Mahdi (Appointed One), the Seven Imams and Hidden Imams further muddies the waters as lots of accretions pile on to make this seemingly simple religion with a core message much more complex - who'd have guessed that would have happened with more lore being added over time?
8: Stain Your Prayer Rug With Wine - The Sufi Way
This chapter looks at the evolution of Sufism which was a mix of numerous philosophical and religious thoughts and theories including Christian monasticism, Hindu asceticism, Buddhist and Tantric thought, Islamic Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, and some elements of Shi‘ism, Manichaeism, and Central Asian shamanism - quite a heady brew!
Aslan argues that their asceticism and detachment was similar to the Mendicant Monks who travelled the land, spreading the Word whilst picking up various accretions that went into and changed their practices over time.
Even though some Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims treat the Sufis with suspicion, the Sufism themselves believe that reason and theology, creed and ritual, law and its commandments must work together to attain that supreme virtue: love. They believe that only by transcending the dogma and rules can one attain a closer relationship and intimate understanding of God.
I was born and remain a Sunni Muslim but this way of thinking is beautiful as it moves away from the rigid rules of Shariah (itself something that was created and altered by those in power to control the Ummah over time) and makes the religion a living thing that is personal and communal at the same time. This speaks to me as a someone who is a Muslim yet also deeply Humanist ... Yup, quite a heady brew indeed.
I like the idea that it doesn't matter how you reach the summit of your faith so long as you walk a path, any path, which all lead to the zenith is wonderful: 'that moment of enlightenment in which the veil of reality is stripped away, the ego obliterated, and the self utterly consumed by God.' In other words, he becomes one with the Universal Spirit and achieves unity with the Divine. In Evangelion terms, Instrumentaility but scientifically, the Singularity.
Aslan states,' For Sufis, there is no good and evil, no light and dark; there is only God. This concept of radical unity is called monism: the notion that all things, despite their variety, can be reduced to a single unified “thing” in either space, time, essence, or quality.'
9: An Awakening in the East - The Response to Colonialism
The Sepoy Mutiny, or rather the Indian Revolt of 1857 was a consequence of years oppression by the East India Company and the British colonial project which had stripped them of their land of its natural resources and tried to convert them and their families forcibly to Christianity. The lie that the West brought democracy, technology and the ideals of the Enlightenment were all cover for political and economic dominance, which was achieved through brutal military might. What the Western governments who took over new lands didn't always realise was that ideals such as social egalitarianism, popular sovereignty, and the pursuit and preservation of knowledge had their origins not in Christian Europe, but in the Ummah of Islam. Whether it was fairly implemented was a different case of course but the principles were there. However, the Ulama also arguably bore some responsibility for the decline of Islamic civilization as it stifled independent thought and scientific progress whilst Europe was ascending through the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
Aslan then looks at the concept of Pan-Islamism, "the encouragement of Muslim unity across cultural, sectarian, and national boundaries, under the banner of a single, centralized (and obviously Turkish) Caliphate—in other words, the revival of the Ummah." This was difficult to uniformly achieve so a Pan-Arabism concept took hold, where Arab unity would be the ties that bound, but the First World War redrew the map and this unity was never realised. This led to the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, an all-encompassing religious, political, social, economic, and cultural system which its creator, Hasan al-Banna, thought "… represented a universal ideology superior to all other systems of social organization the world had known."
After al-Banna's assassination, the concept of Islamism, a nationalist ideology that calls for the creation of an Islamic state in which the sociopolitical order would be founded upon a distinctly Islamic moral framework, started burgeoning.
The Anglo-Saudi Treaty of 1915 was realised nearly 40 years later as the British encouraged the Saudis to recapture the Arabian Peninsula from Ottoman power to allow control over the Persian peninsula. The rise of Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism led to fundamentalists. This extreme of Islam were the Mujahadin who were put to use in Afghanistan to occupy the Soviet forces but, surprisingly, they won and this gave birth to Jihadism, a transnational militant movement that sought the creation of an Ummah without national borders or boundaries. This was an ultra version of Pan-Islamism with military might, funded and backed by President Jimmy Carter and the Saud family, which grew out of its remit and would alter geopolitics around the world. Al-Queda would turn most of the world (including most Muslims) against Jihadism after 9/11 and also would make the Middle East suspicious of America, as it seemed like the Middle East was a colonisation experiment with wars fought against the hateful 'Clash of Civilisations' rhetoric.
10: Slouching Toward Media - The Quest for Islamic Democracy
This chapter is almost autobiographical as it looks at Aslan's childhood in Iran before his escape to America during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He covers the fall of the Shah, the rise of Khomeini and the disastrous Western backed Iran-Iraq War that unified the Iranians around their nation and leader, even when they had misgivings about his policies.
Aslan then jumps back to the post-war period and looks at how Western divide and rule empire building strategies led to bloody repercussions later in French Algeria (Civil War), Belgian Rwanda (Genocide), British Palestine (Nakba and partition), British India (Partition and civil unrest) and British Iraq (Sectarian violence). This was all due to the decolonisation process, where after many years of political and social engineering with little regard for ethnic, religious and social norms, countries were asked to just get on with reuniting the disperate elements of their country.
This got me thinking about how the Western talk of democracy in the Middle East is seen by many as disingenuous and hypocritical as when elections in Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine did not go the way the United States had hoped, the democracy promotion agenda was shut down. Post Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi ascent in Egypt after the Arab Spring (he was Time magazines 'Man of the Year'), the American government did nothing to support this burgeoning democracy when there was a military coup. At the time, we heard talk about a multi-faceted response but really it was what it usually always is: self interest and acquiring whatever resources it can get for itself. America did nothing to support Morsi and allowed the military to take over, once again normalising relationships with the new dictatorship.
We see this time and time again throughout history but, with the victors rewriting the past, it is only recently that there has been a more critical reexamination of the facts, like Thatcher's relationship with General Pinochet etc and the CIA destabilising many South American democracies.
Aslan looks at the wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa as many Muslim majority countries were making a statement of identity, not a statement of belief. They were Muslim but they wanted democracy as the tenets of Islam are compatible with democracy, unlike what many claim. He says, "When the Prophet Muhammad created the first Islamic polity in Medina fourteen hundred years ago, he deliberately set the foundations for a comprehensive way of life meant to satisfy the social, spiritual, and material needs of the people, while at the same time fulfilling the will of God.. religion has always been more than a matter of beliefs and practices. It is, above all, a perspective, a mode of being. Religion encompasses one’s culture, one’s politics, one’s very view of the world. This is particularly true of Islam, which, like all great religions, has been shaped not only by metaphysical concerns but also by the social, cultural, spiritual, and political milieu in which it finds itself."
Aslan argues that religious pluralism, the view that all religions are equally valid paths to salvation or ultimate truth and can coexist harmoniously, is key in Islam and has been subverted or manipulated by those in power. However, there are many countries where this idea has worked well like Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Senegal, etc. It's not perfect by any means but name a country where it is?
The seperation of State and Religion was built into Islam when Muhammed (PBUH) stated that no Caliph should have control over the religious institutions but only civic duties. Now consider the situation in America where State and Church have most definitely mixed to create the weird situation where abortion rights, female bodily autonomy and gay rights have been rolled back due to a rise in Christian fundamentalism amongst the political elite.
Aslan argues that religion is key in many countries but shouldn't dictate laws according to scripture, however it may help to inform it as it can create a moral framework. He says that Islam evolves with the times but there is a battle between "... those who seek to reconcile their faith and traditions with the realities of the modern world and those who react against those realities by reverting—sometimes violently—to the 'fundamentals' of their faith." And he's not wrong here, there is a split happening between the mobilizing forces for the Islamic Reformation but change is happening from within, albeit extremely slowly.
11: Welcome to the Islamic Reformation - The Future of Islam
The newer generation of Muslims mostly want democracy rather than autocracy but are reconciling that against the wave of new self-styled preachers, spiritual gurus, academics, activists, and amateur intellectuals. The Ulama and the reformationists are in battle with the institution and individuals fighting over religious authority which is difficult as, unlike in Judaism or Christianity which have had their own reformations, Islam has no and had no single religious authority. No one individual or group can claim to speak for the entire religion or the billion and a half strong Muslim community, which is why it is uniquely difficult to reform or guide. Add the fact that 80% of the worlds Muslims do not understand Arabic and had to rely on the approves translations, until recently, and what we have is Islam as a worldwide community built upon common beliefs but through a uniquely national lens - the socioeconomic of a country may effect how you interpret Islam.
A quick side note : I had never thought about it like this but thinking through it, that's why ISIS and any group that try to create a unified message of a caliphate in the Middle East guided by a powerful individual has never taken hold. Muslims know that the Quran specifically states that the exact timing of the Day of Judgment is known only to God and humans cannot manipulate or hasten this event. However, in Judaism, the belief in the coming of the Messiah is a core tenet, closely linked to the concept of 'Greater Israel' and the restoration of the Jewish people and their ‘sovereignty’ over the land. The Messiah, a descendant of King David, is expected to usher in a period of peace, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and gather the Jewish people from exile. This belief system is often intertwined with Zionism, a movement that emphasizes the religious significance of the Land of Israel and its return to Jewish sovereignty. Zionism, like a doomsday cult of old, is always angling for the conditions to fulfill the prophecy to bring about these conditions. However, by forever linking Judaism with the concept of Greater Israel, Jews are linked to an inherently problematic ethnostate where there is a hierarchy of race and religion and apartheid is allowed. This is a big problem and a huge issue for the Palestine - Israel conflict. How do we reconcile this nonsense in the modern world with Human Rights for all, the rule of law and the Geneva Convention? Apparently, with Western complicity (as well as military and financial support) and Middle Eastern silence is how.
Back to Aslan, he discusses how the Internet has further democratised Islam, creating a liberal and intolerant version of the religion - both are as valid as each other as the religion is open to interpretation and has no central guide. However, the radicalisation of some Islamic thought, with an algorithm pushing more inciteful posts that create traffic, leads to a poor perception of the religion in many countries who do not understand that it is a religion of peace.
Aslan ends with a downbeat, 'we'll see how it goes but Reformations are messy' but he's not wrong and to deny this would be disingenuous. The book was written in 2011 and since then we have had the consequences of the Arab Spring, revolutions and uprising and a rise in young Muslims calling for democracy and better rights for women and LGBTQ+. I wonder, if he were writing an updated version of this book, what would he add or say.
LINK: Gods: A Human History of Religion by Reza Aslan- Book Review (and Some Thoughts)
LINK: The Good Place and Philosophy - Book Review
LINK- The Anxious Generation: Book Review (and Some Thoughts)
LINK- Utopia for Realists- Book Review
LINK- ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ LINK: Elden Ring- Videogames As Art
LINK- Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties- Book Review (and Some Thoughts)
LINK- The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next- Book Review