Reza Aslan's No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam is a wonderfully crafted account of Islam throughout history. This overview may also be put into perspective, as it is coming from a self-avowed atheist.
Starting from the beginning, Aslan sets the stage for pre-Islamic Arabia: he tells about the status of the Ka‘ba (as it was still a center of pagan worship before Islam) and explains how one tribe, the Quraysh, transformed Mecca into the center of the Arabian peninsula, basing its success on the religious-economic ties associated with the Ka‘ba. Obviously it is difficult to give justice to the book and its detail in this summary, but when Muhammad arrives and the birth of Islam is explained and reviewed, it becomes evident that many people throughout today's world simply do not understand Islam. While reading this book, I realized many different labels and stereotypes attributed to Islam in modern society are false, and that their propagated survival depends solely on the fact that Islam is misunderstood (and to be fair, there were many things about Islam that I did not fully understand and things that I did not know were true, and I am glad that I finally know the truth).
All in all, I believe that this book is a necessity for spreading awareness about Islam, awareness of the truth behind it. Today with all of our technological achievements in communication and the sharing of information, it is not hard to understand why rumors and lies can circulate and flourish so easily. I hope that the ideas in this book can take advantage of the very same medium as the lies about Islam do: in fact, I think it is essential they do if we want to see a peaceful resolution to the struggles in the Middle East and the shock waves they create in the Western world. The search for truth should be the leading motive power in any argument or conflict, and if we as a global society wish to end conflict, how can we expect to do so with the truth so deeply hidden by rumor and falsehood?
A highly-recommended eye-opening, awareness-raising, and truth-promoting book.
~Charles Bronson
