In No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Reza Aslan chronicles the development of Islam from its unpromising beginnings into a force to be reckoned with worldwide.Ī two-page chronology marks key events from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in 570 up to Al-Qaeda’s attack on New York and Washington in 2001 (pp. Thoughtful Christians need historical perspective to develop a strategy for educating themselves about the opportunities and challenges that have emerged in Islam in recent years.
Alarmists warn of the imminent dissolution of civilization, longsuffering multiculturalists call for sharp discrimination between the militant minority and the peace-loving majority within the Muslim community, and others greet Muslim immigration with the expectation that little will change in American culture as a result of the assimilation of Muslims. On the other hand, the barrage of information is withering. On one hand, the magnifying glass of expertise is angled to offer a sharper image of the Muslim community, its history, its customs, and its ambitions, to show a bewildering array of specimens. Second, paradoxically, authors of books and magazine articles, bloggers, and interviewees on radio and television bombard us with “perspective.” This cornucopia of informants is a mixed blessing, however. population (somewhere between 5 and 6 million), there hasn’t been a serious terrorist incident in the United States since 9/11, and most of our Muslim neighbors seem to have assimilated into the mainstream.
How can this be?įirst, a majority of Westerners think, “Muslims are here…probably to stay-but as long as they mind their own business and don’t disrupt my way of life, I’ve got no problem with that.” After all, Muslims constitute about half of 1 percent of the total U.S. Public awareness of Islam, the world’s fastest-growing religion, has gone from the basement of our consciousness through the roof, and is now somewhere in the stratosphere, but six years hence, this still has not translated into useful knowledge for very many people. The events of 9/11 guaranteed one thing-that the Western world must come to understand Islam. No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 30, number 3 (2007).
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