Reza Aslan’s No God But God: Book Review
Here is what No God But God Has For You
I had been wandering and seeking sources to understand and get an insight into middle east politics. I wished to understand how sectarianism evolved in Islam and how this altered the course of Muslim history. Reza Aslans’s No God But God is the only well-versed and literary piece which gave me an in-depth understanding of Islamic history and the vital events led to schism. Reza Aslan an Iranian-American scholar and professor of middle east studies in the University of Iowa, illuminates the origin evolution and history of Islam covering all aspects such as Sectarianism, temporal and religious authority, long-held drudge among the companions, the struggle for power of the Arab families, different Muslim philosophies, socio-economic cum religious aspect and impact of the sanctuary — Kaaba, Jihad, Middle East Politics, Sufism, and different reformation movements.
Pre-Prophet Era
Reza Aslan unveils an interesting religion Hanifism. Hanifs would assert that “there is no god beyond him” contrary to the Henotheism of the Arab pagans, Hanifs would not even eat anything slaughtered for divinity other than God. During the time, different sedentary clans of Mecca were gathered under a single tribe, Quraish, by Qussayy in the fourth century. Qussayy had established a religio-economic system out of the sanctuary’s presence in the barren land of the Arab peninsula. Despite their claim of being the followers of pure Abrahamic religion, Hanifs would still have great reverence for the pantheon which had three hundred and sixty idols, worshiped inside it, and perhaps it was the only reason that the Quraish didn’t prohibit them of what they preached — as long as they do not pose any threat to the Mecca’s religio-economic system.
Qussayy had erected his house adjacent to the sanctuary in such a position that those who wanted to enter the sanctuary would pass through it. Hence, he had established a political, religious, and economic dominance of the Quraish over the Meccan sedentary tribes as well as Nomadic Bedouin tribes of the entire Arab peninsula. It is stated that the sole reason for the Yemenis elephants’ attack on the Ka’aba was the economic market that had been established due to the sanctuary.
In Nomadic Bedouin tribes the polygyny was practiced; both genders could keep more than one spouse at a time, as far as it was concerned with the Sedentary tribes of the Meccan city they would have a bit civilized polygamy system — the only male could have more than one spouse — and in both the societies the male and female both had the right of divorce.
Post-Prophet Era
Reza Aslan also throws light on the tussle between Ali and Ayesha which later became the root cause of the shia’a Sunni split. The ahl bait, bannu hashim and Bannu ummayah power struggle has also explicitly put before the reader. He views the clans’ war within Quraish — — Bannu Hashim and Bannu ummayah. The very first caliphs argued against the caliphate of Ali, on account of Ali’s incompetency and rendering both secular and religious authority to the same hands. However, one becomes immensely obsessed by the fact that at the time of the burial of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the closest companions vanished and were found in a house beating an Ansaar, Saad ibn Ubada for that Ansaars had suggested his name for the caliphate. Whereas the corpse of the Prophet had only Ali and his Khadims. Moreover, Abu Bakr’s outright negligence of the Prophet’s heirs is another story that exacerbated the rivalry between Abu Bakr and Ali. Notwithstanding, after Abu Bakr’s demise the caliphate was granted to Umar and again Umar’s council of six persons ignored Ali and elected Uthman: an elite of Bannu ummaya. Uthman was highly denunciated for his inept leadership insofar as Ayesha would call him an old dotard. Reza Aslan says the battle of camel was not fought by Ayesha for Uthman’s vendetta rather it was Ayesha’s efforts for securing the caliphate for her cousins Talha and Zubair. However, the Kharijites a newly emerged extremists’ faction of the early Muslims proved fatal for Ali. After the war of Siffens Ali had adopted a benevolent attitude against Muwayyah which had resulted in the annoyance of Kharjites. They resented and left Ali, but Ali didn’t leave them. Right after the battle of Siffens, Ali, pursued them, massacred, and exterminated the whole Kharjites faction. In the next year, Ali was attacked by a Kharjite and murdered.
The Beginning of Sectarianism
Under the peace treaty between Ali’s elder son Hassan and Muwayyah, the latter declared himself the sole ruler of the caliphate until his death, but it was the time when Islamic history’s first blunder took place. Muwayyah appointed his son Yazid as caliph ignoring the treaty with Hassan. Up until then, Hassan had died — poisoned. However, His younger brother Hussayn ibn Ali was invited by the townsmen of Kofah to raise a revolt against the illegitimate ruler Yazid but when Hussayn came with seventy-two members of ahl bait the Kofa’s people betrayed and didn’t join him. On the 10th of Muharram Hussayn was killed and beheaded by the people of Yazid. After four years of the Massacre at Karbala, a few people gathered in the 684 century to the Karbala ground, having their faces colored black and clothes tore, lamented the brutal killing of Hussayn and ahl bait. Thus, started the very first self-flagellation ritual of shia’as.
However, the real game of throne began afterward in the history of Muslims. The two schools of thought emerged Mutazilli and Ashairitte. Adherents of the former school of thought were called rationalists, held, the rejection of the Quran as uncreated and co-eternal with God. They upheld that if the Quran is the word of God, He logically must have preceded his speech. Moreover, they recounted that man is free in all his bad and good doings. God has bestowed free will upon humanity and that knowledge is derived from reason. Contrarily, the Abbasid dynasty sought the support of the Ashairritte school of thought for legitimizing and strengthening their rule. The traditionalist school of thought emerged against the excessive use of reason by rationalists. Until the utter fall of the Abbasid dynasty, the latter was used as a tool against the formers to quell rationalism as it posed a threat to the Abbasid rule. The Abbasid considered themselves Shia’as, however, Shi’ates never accepted them as their rulers.
The fourth Imam was the only son of Hussayen who survived Karbala, Ali, also known as Zayn al Abiden. He was sent to Medina after spending some years in captivity in Damascus. Ali was succeeded by his son Muhammad al baqir though a small faction in the sha’ias rejected Baqir as the fifth Imam and chose to another al Abiden’s sons — Zaid ash Shahid. This group is known as the Zaydis. He passed his imamate to Jafar al Sadiq as the sixth most influential Imam. He established shai’ssm’s main school of Law. The Jafari School of law differentiates from the Sunni school of law. Before dying, Jafar designated his eldest son Ismail as the seventh imam but Ismail died before his father. He was replaced by Jaffar’s second son Musa Al Kazim. There was again a group who denied Musa al Kazim and argued that Ismail has not died rather has gone in “occultation” and that he will return not as Ismail but as Mehndi. The followers of Ismail are called Ismaillis or Seveners who accept the existence of only seven imams. After Imam Musa came to Imam Rida and he was succeeded by his son Imam Muhammad Taqi at the time of Abbasid caliphs (themselves shi’ah). They considered the Imams as their political rivals the animosity reach the extent that the tenth and eleventh imam Hadi and imam Askari respectively spent their entire imamate locked away in Abbasids prisons.
Aslan, also sheds light on the Iranian revolution and Khomeinism. Khomeini wanted to establish a theocratic state from the ruins of Shah of Iran. He never liked to be called mehndi as most of the Irani rulers seized power through this title. Nevertheless, Khomeini called himself “vilayte faqih” by which he concentrated absolute authority in the same hands. Secondly, he became deputy of Imam which means he had religious authority as well. Vilayte faqih meant that in the absence of the hidden imam the faqih has the sole authority to which the imams were entrusted. Many Ayatollahs criticized his doctrine of vilayte faqih but using his popular mandate he seized the control of the transitional government and declared himself the first faqih of Iran, the supreme temporal and religious authority in Iran.
Middle East Reformists and Wahabism
In concurrent with that, Reza Aslan illuminates maneuvers of Pan-Islamists Jamaluddin al-Afghani and his Egyptian disciple Muhammad Abdu. The struggle for the unity of the entire ummah compelled Al-Afghani to leave his country. He visited almost all the Muslim countries to unite them under one banner of Muslim ummah despite trivial differences of rituals and religious dogmas between the different sects. In the beginning, to a great extent, he was successful, but fear of the west didn’t leave him free to do what he desired. During his visit to Egypt, he met with a young scholar named Muhammad Abdu who became impressed insofar as that he devoted himself to the mission of Al-Afghani. Though until 1949 both the reformists had died however they had produced this great zeal in the later world that like Syyed Qutb and Hassan Al Banna who was influenced by the philosophy of great Muslim scholar Al Ghazali led the middle east out of its dark ages. colonel Jamal Adul Nasar proved a bulk wall against Al Banna’s followers known as Muslim brothers. Jamal Nasser was a dictator and at first, sought the support of Muslim brothers for the legitimacy of his rule but later after banning the political activists, turned against Muslim brothers. He imprisoned Al Banna and when his book, the milestone from the jail, got published. He was hanged on the charge of causing a revolt in 1966. Jamal Nassar also posed a great threat to the Arab peninsula wherein start of the nineteenth century Wahabism had erupted. Ibn Saud was sardaar of a tribe far away in Najad. He was offered political control by Abdul wahab. Abdul wahab had started a campaign against Biddah in Islam and had dismantled myriads shrines of the prophets and the companions of the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) which had given birth to peculiar practices such as intercessions and commemorations.
This was called Wahabism. It was quite a new shape of Kharjites. Wahabists issued hijab of women and beard of men mandatory upon all. Tobacco, coffee, music, and all this sort of things were prohibited. Anyone, if found guilty, was punished at the spot. The extremism of the wahabists rose to the extent that they stoned a woman to death for finding her guilty of adultery. For which Abdul Wahab and his followers were banished from the city. That’s why they sought the support of Ibn Saud in Najad and came with a greater force conquering Hijaaz.
The Arabs And Turks
The Arabs realized that they are not safe in the hands of Turks. They revolted in mid of world war I, against the Turks. The son of Ibn Saud declared Arab as “the kingdom of Arabia”. In the mid of the twentieth century when the Wahabists and Saud family got absolute religious and temporal authority. The newly discovered and extracted oil became the core source of spreading Arabian religious belief, Wahabisim, in rest of the Muslim world and the west turned towards the support of Arabian monarch to grasp control over the newly discovered oil.
When the extremists saw that Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud is getting closer to the west they also rose in revolt against their ruler. Later the wave of fanatics in the generation was turned to the Afghan war. Men, like Osama bin laden, was sent to Afghanistan to save Arabia. Hence the oil became the primary source of Arabs for spreading their belief of Wahabism. They even granted subsidies only to those companies who will follow the wahabist’s views.
In the last chapters of No God But God, Reza Aslan describes Sufism. He puts that Sufism is the amalgamation of monasticism, asceticism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, shamanism, and Neo-Platonism, leaving the reader in an utter hodgepodge. He also views rites of tariqah— the way of Sufis. The very first school of Sufism was Qadriyah whose Azkars were considered as Biddah in Islam by Wahabists. Later, the Naqshbandiya school of thought also adopted the same way of Sufism. Lastly, the author writes about scholars like Amr Khaled who are not the product of the seminaries and are leading the ummah towards the interpretation of an Islam which is peaceful tolerant, and liberal having the flexibility to change with the winds of time. No God But God has also an explanation of the negative and positive impacts of social media upon the Muslim community across the world.
Once you start reading No God But God you will gravitate to it due to its literary work and stimulating arguments. I will suggest this book to all of those who are interested in knowing middle politics and how an indigenous democracy can be established in the region. Reza Aslan has pertinently put all that in the book.
