No, don't worry I'm not got getting all religious on ya... it's just time for another book review!
Book review, you say, what ever do you mean by that?! Yes, it is has been quite some time since my last one (yikes, October 4th to be exact)... but my reading slump has continued to march on...
So as you can see, the latest selection is No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan. So you are probably thinking... no wonder you're in a slump.. this one does not exactly sound like the a book you can't put down... and, well... it was kind of the truth, thus the delay (though I should say, I finished it over a week ago). So what prompted me to pick up the book in the first place. Well, we have seen Reza on some of our favorite political-ish tv shows... The Daily Show and Real Time With Bill Maher... and the 34-year old has always proven an interesting and knowledgeable guest... and, okay... we kinda have a political nerd crush on him too!
So I figured his book was worth a look... and it was time to expand my horizons and learn something about what I knew going in was a largely misunderstood religion (well, at least by those of us generically in "the west"). Perhaps, I should have read some of the blurbs on the back of the book... here are a couple...
"an eloquent, erudite paean to Islam in all of its complicated glory"
or
"an incisive, scholarly primer in Muslim history"
Well, it ended up being a bit too "scholarly" for me! My "joke" here was going to be that what I really needed was a copy of Islam for Dummies... but good thing I checked... that book actually does exist!
That said, the good news is I did learn many things from this book... the bad news: I just can't communicate it back in anything resembling an effective manner. Todd tossed some basic questions to me... and I really didn't do that great of a job. One man's "complicated glory" is another man's "darn confusing at times" (hand raised here!). But when you are looking at thousands of years of history and a religious beliefs that has turned into a game of "telephone" ... where each re-telling seems to get further away from its original intent and splintered by different interpretations that can get a little blurry.
So what I walked away with was stuff that I pretty much knew deep down... that Islam is a very tolerant religion and it has been hijacked over time by extremists looking for a means of justifying their actions. Heck that's not so different than religious revisionism in this very country... granted people aren't blowing each other (or themselves) up... but still something sinister.
One interesting idea Aslan purports is that what we are seeing in the world today is more an internal struggle within Islam (i.e., the "non"-civil war going on in Iraq) than an East vs. West battle of civilizations. So how does that explain 9/11, London and Madrid... well Aslan notes that Bin Laden stated one of his "goals" of 9/11 was to "goad the United States into an exaggerated retaliation against the Islamic world so as to mobilize Muslims to, in the words of George W. Bush, 'choose sides.'" Additionally, Aslan notes that the London bombings did not go off in tourist areas, financial, or even government districts... but in "moderate" and modern Muslim neighborhoods of East London.
So, at least for me, a challenging read... and it is over-ambitious to think you can really get a good grasp on any religion in 266 pages, especially one that you are admittedly very unfamiliar with.
After now three quite sluggish reads, I decided to go back to the "well" for something that could be quickly read and enjoyed... get that reading momentum (mojo!) back... and I have accomplished that... so the next book "review" should be up in the nearer future!
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