Taking its title from the Islamic ‘shahada’ declaration that, ‘there is no god but God (Allah) and Muhammad is His last prophet’, Aslan’s book is as emphatic in its commentary on the religion of Islam, almost a definitive book, singular, as the Islamic ‘shahada’ is for Muslims.
‘He (Reza Aslan) is here from Karachi’, said the bookseller to me when I asked him this very book a couple of years ago. That untrue remark of his, with whom I am now a good friend, took away any interest that I might have had in reading this book at that time. Why? Because I couldn’t bring myself to belief that reading a book from someone who lived in Karachi on the subject of Islam would be of any urgency or importance, or urgent importance.
Now, as I have read this book, not only do I know where Reza Aslan is really from, Iranian born American, but am also convinced of the utter importance of this book. I may nudge him next time I go book shopping from the stalls for deviating me from reading this book; but while I am also guilty of being passively lazy in reading the book’s cover or inside pages, it may have been the best time for me to read this book now.
Aslan’s book describes and comments so intelligently and comprehensively on the past, present and future of Islam, and his scholarship is so well-researched and thought-through, that I can confidently call and recommend this book as ‘the single most important and urgent book you would want to read on the topic of Islam – that too, in all its entirety. Yet such a bold claim coming from such a young reader might sound premature, since it could be my pretentiousness or a result of my enthusiastic reading experience of this book to make such a claim.
However, I am a firm believer that as a reader you would know which book means a lot to you, and from you to others, with the impact it leaves on you; not only once the book is over, but from the very first pages of it and throughout. How strongly the book strikes you – fiction to your heart, nonfiction to your intellect, or a blend of both – determines that book’s worth and importance amongst the many books you read.
On Islam, ever since my reading-born passion to understand the religion I follow but know so little of, I have read the authors Karen Armstrong (Islam; A History of God), Lazily Hazelton (Muhammad; After the Prophet), Saif Ghobash (Letters to a Young Muslim), and Barnaby Rogerson (The Heirs of Prophet Mohammad), and while all of these authors and their books have provided me the knowledge and wisdom to build the foundation of having my own thoughts and understandings about Islam, Aslan’s book outstands them all because it summarizes and relates contents from all of these books into a single book and narration that it becomes sufficient enough to stand on its own.
Aslan has structured this book in way that he is able to not only retell the story of Islam with a fresh perspective but also with an intelligence as he links the history of Islam with the current-day state of what has become a fundamentalist and ill-reputated religion. It hurts me as a Muslim to see Islam being targeted so unkindly, where the true evidence of what this religion truly is, is contrary to the terrorsome picture of it; Aslan’s book reads like a consolation to this pain that all Muslims feel.
He not only makes Muslims understand, under the light of history, that why Islam is being ill-treated, but also everyone else who reads this book, which is important because those looking from outside in, barely get to see a true and uncluttered picture of Islam. Aslan’s book is truly illustrative regarding the history of present-day Islam while also being truly illuminating about the true essence and beauty of it in all its diversity.
I finished reading
this book with a pregnant hope, the same way Aslan ended writing it: that a new
era of Islam is rising; a flourishing one, and that we will witness it one day soon Inshallah,
God willing!
Ratings: 5/5 ***** April 6, 2021_