No god but God

Before the controversies over his most recent book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (2013), Reza Aslan was best known for his book about the other major monotheistic world religion, Islam, which happens to be his own faith. No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2005) is an essential primer into the history of Islam.

The first chapter provides a background to the religion's formation by describing the paganism of Arabia before 600 C.E., which included the major god Allah (the name is a contraction of the phrase al-ilah, meaning "the god") and hundreds of minor gods. Innumerable jinns (also spelled genies) and other spirits also supposedly inhabited Arabia. Mecca, with its Ka'ba (a shrine holding 360 idols), was at the center of this paganism, and all of these gods co-existed in a hierarchy, although Allah was generally accepted as the most important. To understand the rise of Islam, Aslan argues, it is important to understand this social context:

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.

In short, without this pagan background, which is often ignored in biographies of Mohammad, Islam could not have arisen.

After this provocative first chapter, Aslan then sets the stage for the sudden rise of Islam by pointing to the increasing social inequality in Mecca due to the influence of a powerful tribe that controlled the city’s economy and trade. The disenfranchised and poor, he argues, were extremely receptive to Mohammed's message, which the prophet insisted was straight from Allah, that all believers should be treated with respect and dignity. In fact, after the first "pillar of faith," which is that Allah should be worshipped as the sole deity in the universe ("There is no god but God and Mohammad is his Messenger"), showing charity towards the poor and taking care of the weak are central to Islamic belief. It's no surprise, then, that when Mohammad came down from Mount Hira in 610 C.E., where he had been fasting, to tell of his visions expressing the will of Allah, he found a receptive audience.

(Incidentally, Aslan essentially makes the same argument to explain the rapid spread of Christianity: Like Islam, its promise was to cure the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and protect the weak. There was one additional promise to the Jews, however: To expel the Romans from the Holy Land.)

Subsequent chapters trace the growth of Islam, from the first mosque in Medina to its global impact today. One lengthy chapter explains the schism between the Sunni and Shia that puzzles most non-Muslims, while other chapters discuss the tradition of hijab, the definition of jihad, the nature of the Koran (the book is not simply the words of Allah but is Allah himself), and other tenets of Islam. One particularly fascinating chapter explores the Sufi, a mystical sect of Islam based on love and asceticism. Aslan seems particularly sympathetic to this sect, which is loathed as heretical by orthodox Sunnis.

While No god but God isn't going to make you into an expert in Islam, it will give you a basic understanding into the religion, and as such, you'll find it invaluable reading.