No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

by Reza Aslan

obstacles that keep a person from

“Fight in the way of God those who fight you,” the Quran says, “but do not begin hostilities; God does not like the aggressor”

“Permission to fight is given only to those who have been oppressed

… who have been driven from their homes for saying, ‘God is our Lor...

“there can be no compulsion in religion” (2:256).

“believe it if you like, or do not” (18:29).

“To you your religion; to me mine” (109:6).

“refashion Islam as an alternative to Judaism.”

To understand Muhammad’s actual beliefs regarding the Jews and Christians of his time, one must look not to the words that chroniclers put into his mouth hundreds of years after his death, but rather to the words that God put into his mouth while he was alive.

That means that as far as Muhammad understood, the Torah, the Gospels, and the Quran must be read as a single, cohesive narrative about humanity’s

relationship to God,

Consequently, when he came to Medina, he made Jerusalem—the site of the Temple (long since destroyed) and the direction in which the Diaspora Jews turned during worship—the direction of prayer, or qiblah, for all Muslims.

three faiths of Abraham.

Ulama

mulk

Shi‘ite

Mawlana Mawdudi,

Sayyid Qutb

temporal. Thus when one fasts during the month of Ramadan or joins in the Friday prayers, one does so with the knowledge that all Muslims—from the first days of Muhammad’s preaching until today, and in every part of the world—fast and

pray in precisely the same way, at precisely the same time.

tawhid

shirk,

obscuring God’s Oneness

anthropomorphize

any

grave sin that keeps the believer apart from God.

the result would be a confusion of theological diversity that would allow people to follow their own wills rather than the will of God.

Case in point scientology!!

If God is eternal, then so are the divine attributes, which cannot be separated from God’s self. This would make the Quran, as God’s Speech, an eternal and uncreated thing.

God’s Speech reflects God but is not itself God.

instance, belief in the eternal, uncreated word of God has led to the widespread conviction among Muslims that the Quran cannot be translated from its original language.

fiqh

abrogation

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd,

Qasim—the

Christians

coped with Jesus’ demoralizing death by reinterpreting the Crucifixion as a conscious and eternal decision of self-sacrifice,

Shi‘ism

an act of communal witnessing, not a means of scourging one’s sins.

Thus the Shi‘ite profession of faith: “There is no god but

God, Muhammad is God’s Messenger, and Ali is God’s Executor

(zahir)

ta’wil

(batin).

t...

Imamate.

Zaydis.

Mahdi.

taqiyyah

monasticism

filial