NO GOD BUT GOD

Aslan reworks his illuminating and readable No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2006) for a slightly younger audience with mixed success. The early chapters lay a strong foundation for understanding Islam’s essential tenets and character. The author describes the early Arabic cultural and religious milieu, separates (scanty) fact from legend in tracing Muhammad’s life and shows how Islam developed from a strong call for social and economic reform to a “revolutionary experiment” that profoundly and successfully challenged established traditions in every area of Arab society and government. Following that, though, the narrative fragments into a series of informative but less cogent essays on narrower topics, including the power struggle among Muhammad’s successors, the true meaning of “jihad” (no, not “Holy War”), the strong links between Islam and Judaism and the status of women in Islam. Nonetheless, the author offers a rare and lucid vision of early Islam from the inside, capped with a heartening (for many Westerners) contention that modern Muslim radicalism isn’t on the rise but actually in its dying throes. (source list) (Nonfiction. YA, adult)