The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

No God But God

The acclaimed short history of Islam, fully revised and updated to commemorate the ten-year-anniversary of 9/11.

Aslan is a superb narrator, bringing each century to life with vivid details and present tense narration that makes popular history so enthralling... A terrific read

Outstandingly useful ... always balanced, vivid and readable

Grippingly narrated and thoughtfully examined . . . a literate, accessible introduction to Islam

Aslan offers an invaluable introduction to the forces that have shaped Islam [in this] eloquent, erudite paean to Islam in all of its complicated glory

Wise and passionate . . . an incisive, scholarly primer in Muslim history and an engaging personal exploration

Acutely perceptive . . . For many troubled Muslims, this book will feel like a revelation, an opening up of knowledge too long buried

Thoroughly engaging and excellently written . . . While [Aslan] might claim to be a mere scholar of the Islamic Reformation, he is also one of its most articulate advocates

A revelation, an opening up of knowledge too long buried, denied and corrupted by generations of men ... Muslim keepers of the latter will rage against Reza Aslan as his careful scholarship and precise language dismantles their false claims and commands ... Aslan is acutely perceptive

A rather beautiful account of the birth and evolution of Islam ... Lucid and illuminating ... Fascinating

Aslan is an engaging writer, his strength lies ... as an observer of contemporary challenges facing Islam ... Sensitive and generous

Enthralling. A book of tremendous clarity and generosity of spirit

Reza Aslan is a comparative religions scholar from Harvard, who is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. At Harvard, he was elected president of Harvard's chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, a UN organisation committed to global understanding. Currently teaching an introductory course on Islam at Iowa, Aslan is also at work on a novel.

*Ten years on from 9/11, much of the Muslim faith remains largely unknown and misunderstood in the West. 
 
*While there have been a number of successful books on the topic of Islamic history - from Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Brief History to Bernard Lewis's The Crises of Islam - there is surprisingly no book for a popular audience about Islam as a religion, let alone one by an author from an Islamic background. 
 
*No God But God fills that gap, addressing issues of belief: the difference between the Quran and the Bible, the meaning of the Hajj, the Muslim relationship with Jesus, the Muslim attitude towards Jews, equality between the sexes and more. 
 
* This revised and updated edition includes a wealth of new material and new chapters covering recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; the changing face of Islam in Europe and North Africa; and a number of topics of heated debate (the veil controversy; Islam &amp; women; Iraq War as a Jihadi recruiting agent etc).

Confronting Radical Religion

How to Win a Cosmic War

Acclaimed author Reza Aslan dissects two of the most devastating ideologies of our times - Jihadism and the 'War on Terror'.

Compelling, penetrative and timely. If more of us in the West grasp Aslan's arguments, we will begin to win the war of ideas against Jihadists and extremists.

absorbing, thought-provoking and illuminating... Few writers are as well qualified to tackle the terrain... Aslan's book represents nothing less than a call to arms, a clear-eyed and impassioned remidner that the most effective way to win a cosmic war is to triumph in the battle for hearts and minds at home.

What is refreshing about Aslan's book is its breadth and its impartiality.

'Offers a very persuasive argument for the best way to counter jihadism."

"Insightful, well-argued...tracks the history of antiestablishment thinking 
in the Islamic world"

intelligent...a thought provoking book and the chapter on the radicalisation of Europe's young is particularly useful...Aslan opens up many fruitful areas of enquiry

Reza Aslan's No God but God was shortlisted for the 2005 Guardian First Book Award in the UK and nominated for a PEN USA award for research Non-Fiction. He has studied religions at the universities of Santa Clara, Harvard and California, Santa Barbara, and holds an MFA in fiction from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he was also visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. His work has appeared in the Nation, Slate, and the New York Times.

*Why do they hate us? An entire cottage industry has arisen to answer this question. But what no one has really figured out is, who exactly are they? Is it al-Qaeda? Islamic nationalists? The whole Muslim world? 
 
*HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR lays out, for the first time, a comprehensive definition of the movement behind and surrounding al-Qaeda and the like, a global ideology properly termed Jihadism. 
 
*Contrasting twenty-first-century religious extremism across Christianity, Judaism and Islam with its historical antecedents, Aslan demonstrates that while modern Jihadis may have legitimate social grievances - the suffering of the Palestinians, American support for Arab dictators, the presence of foreign troops in Muslim lands, to name a few - they have no real goals or actual agenda. 
 
*So, what do the Jihadists want? Aslan's answer is: Nothing. The Jihadists have no earthly agenda; they are fighting a metaphysical conflict, a theological war. And ever since 9/11, we have unfortunately been fighting the same cosmic war, the war they want: the so-called 'War on Terror'. 
 
*How do we win a Cosmic War? By refusing to fight in one. And in this stunning new work, Aslan reveals surprising conclusions about how we can deal with this predicament.

Reza Aslan

A brief and lively history... Extraordinary.

Aslan turns Genesis on its head. The extent of our divine anthropomorphism is fascinating. As an introductory biography of a figure who has good claim to be called the most influential of all time, it is interesting indeed.

Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.

[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.

Reza Aslan offers so much to relish in his excellent ‘Human History’ of God. In tracing the commonalities that unite religions, Aslan makes truly challenging arguments that believers in many traditions will want to explore further, and to mull over. This rewarding book is very ambitious in its scope, and it is thoroughly grounded in an impressive body of reading and research.

Philip Jenkins, author of Crucible of Faith

Breathtaking in its scope and controversial in its claims, God: A Human History shows how humans from time immemorial have made God in their own image, and argues that they now should stop. Writing with all the verve and brilliance we have come to expect from his pen, Reza Aslan has once more produced a book that will prompt reflection and shatter assumptions.

Bart D. Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God

Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.

Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.

A Human History

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
In God, Reza Aslan sheds new light on mankind’s relationship with the divine and challenges our perspective on the history of faith and the birth of religion. 
 
From the origins of spiritual thought to the concept of an active, engaged, divine presence that underlies all creation, Aslan examines how the idea of god arose in human evolution, was gradually personalized, endowed with human traits and emotions, and eventually transformed into a single Divine Personality: the God known today by such names as Yahweh, Father, and Allah. 
 
Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, God challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of religious belief, and with it our relationship with life and death, with the natural and spiritual worlds, and our understanding of the very essence of human existence.

Reza Aslan

Praise for God

A brief and lively history... Extraordinary.

Aslan turns Genesis on its head. The extent of our divine anthropomorphism is fascinating. As an introductory biography of a figure who has good claim to be called the most influential of all time, it is interesting ...

Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.

A brief and lively history... Extraordinary.

Aslan turns Genesis on its head. The extent of our divine anthropomorphism is fascinating. As an introductory biography of a figure who has good claim to be called the most influential of all time, it is interesting ...

Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.

A brief and lively history... Extraordinary.

Aslan turns Genesis on its head. The extent of our divine anthropomorphism is fascinating. As an introductory biography of a figure who has good claim to be called the most influential of all time, it is interesting ...

Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.

Books by Reza Aslan

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter