No god but God--after 20 years w/Reza Aslan

Adnan Hussain: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Salam, hello, peace to you all, and welcome to the Adnan Hussain Show. We've got a really special episode. I'm so excited today. But of course, I'm Adnan Hussain, director of the School of Religion, and welcome. medieval Mediterranean and Islamicate historian at Queen's University. And as listeners to the show and followers of the channel know, we talk a lot about religion and particularly Islam in the Middle East. This is really a wonderful opportunity we're going to have to really talk about that issue and the way in which it has been received and how scholarly knowledge and portrayal and representation of Islam has operated in our culture. And to do that, I have probably the best guest possible, Reza Aslan, who probably needs no introduction to you, but you all know that he's an acclaimed writer and scholar of religions whose books include the work that we're going to be discussing principally today, No God But God. The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which is in its 20th anniversary edition. But he's also the author of numerous other really interesting works, including Zealot, The Lifetimes of Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps we'll touch upon that. And also God, A Human History. Reza, it's so wonderful to have you on the show. And thank you for your work and for making time to discuss it with me today.

Reza Aslan: Oh, it's such a pleasure, Adnan. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Adnan Hussain: Likewise. Well, you know, maybe just to start off, although many people are familiar with your work, because this book in particular was a bestseller. Zealot was also a bestseller. So people, you know, know Zealot. about the range of things you've done but perhaps it would be useful for people to know how did you come to be a scholar of religion what were the kinds of motivations what brought you to religion in particular yeah

Reza Aslan: You know, I get this question a lot. I mean, there's obviously a personal aspect to it. I grew up in Iran. My family left in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. And so that always kind of burned into my psyche this fascination with religion and its power to transform societies for good and for bad. And then, you know, I had this kind of other touchstone event in my life when I was in high school where, and I've talked about this a lot, not just in Zealot, but in interviews where I converted to evangelical Christianity. And I think a lot of that kind of went into this fascination that I've always had with religion and religious history, religious phenomenology, spirituality, all of those things, mythologies, like those things have always really been so fascinating to me on a personal level. When I went to college, I went originally to study writing. I mean, that's kind of always what I wanted to be. I never really wanted to be anything else except a writer. But when I went to university, And I took my first religion class, studying religion kind of in a secular environment. It was eye-opening for me. It never occurred to me that this thing that I've been interested in both intellectually and spiritually could be an actual discipline, like a science that you could study. And more importantly, it encompassed everything that I was remotely interested in, history and art and architecture and archeology and sociology and anthropology. And I tell people all the time that if you're a fan of the humanities and can't choose, choose religion, because then you can do all of it. It's great. And, and also, look, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I was good at it. And you know, when you're suddenly good at something, you think maybe I should do this for for a living. And so all of those things kind of went into this interest, this desire to pursue religion as an academic discipline. Now, I never really thought honestly that I always assumed that I would have a two track profession, that I would study and teach religion while also writing. you know narratives books fiction novels things like that it never occurred to me that those two worlds would actually come together um in the way they did and it was no god but god that kind of launched that um i didn't think that my first book was going to be no god but god it wasn't supposed to be no god but god i had actually written a novel and i was shopping that novel And I had a particularly forward-looking literary agent who asked me if I had any other ideas for books. And I said, well, sure, I've got this idea. One day, one day, I'm going to write this introductory text on Islam. And it was 2003. two years removed from 9-11 and she heard the word Islam and I don't think she heard anything else after that. That's all she heard and said, why don't we do that first? And then the rest is history.

Adnan Hussain: Well, that is so fascinating. But firstly, I have to as a head of a religious studies department, I'm going to clip out that, you know, remark that you made that if you don't know your interest in the humanities, take religion, because that is music to my ears. And I think you're absolutely right. Because if you look at, you know, what are the sources for human cultural history, for up until very recently, almost all of it was dominated by some component of religious culture itself. And so it's really hard to actually study, you know, anything before, say, the Enlightenment era in Europe, you know, without it having some relevance to religious culture, whether mythology or devotional culture, piety, religious art, religious and so forth. So I think you're absolutely correct on that. But I did want to, it's so interesting about the enthusiasm of your editor in that moment, because it was obviously an important topic of the time. And so, you know, we'll get into some of the, you know, discussions that you had, the have to say that when we get into that, I really appreciate that you had a particular and unique take, but perhaps you might want to talk a little bit about that context of the work in which you were writing and trying to explain to an audience that was, you know, had a lot of other images and ideas about Islam in their mind. So like, you know, what was that like? You know, what were you trying to respond to in particular? How did you go about doing that? And anything you might say about the reception to the work 20 years ago?

Reza Aslan: Yeah. You know, I'll say this. So on September 10th, 2001, I was a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Iowa, the first full-time professor of Islamic studies in the history of the state in September 10th, 2011. And I was teaching an introductory course on Islam, Introduction to Islam is what it was called. And it had, I think, 17 students in it. On September 12th, it had 240 students in it. So right then and there, I thought to myself, hmm, I think there might be some interest in this topic. And of course, you know, for those of us who remember, and it is weird, it is weird. Like, I mean, you're a teacher, I'm a teacher, like my students, have no connection to 9-11 whatsoever. They talk about 9-11 the way that you and I talk about Pearl Harbor. Like it means nothing to them at all. And yet for those of us who lived through it, particularly those of us who are Muslim and who lived through it, it was like a earth shattering, world altering, history collapsing event. And I think particularly for young Muslims at that time, we were being bombarded with all of this misinformation from every corner about what Islam is and what Islam isn't. And I think for a lot of us, we were thinking to ourselves, that's not what it is. That's not what I think it is. You know, am I the one who's confused? And I had this interest, this desire to, you know, to take the craft of writing that I had been trained in, right? I wanted to be a novelist and to take that training and my scholarship as a scholar of religion and to provide a book that would be appealing and accessible and that would not so much counter the arguments that were being made for and against Islam at that time, but would simply have this one really simple yet profound argument, which is There's nothing that weird about Islam. There's nothing that unique about Islam, honestly. There's nothing that extraordinary about it. It's just a religion, like every other religion in the world, that whether you are coming from the anti-Muslim community or the Muslim community, that this notion that somehow, as opposed to every religion that has ever existed in human history, that Islam is different than that, that Islam is monolithic, it's static, it's unchanging, that unlike every religion in the world, it has not been affected by history, by culture, by context. I mean, the absurdity of that, even as I say it out loud. And yet this was, I think, standard belief in the early 2000s. I think that's what was probably the most revolutionary aspect of this book wasn't just kind of the accessibility and all of that stuff. It was just sort of this simple argument that stop talking about Islam as though it is somehow different than every other religion and start thinking about it as something intricately a part of the story of religion, a story that is, you know, 100,000 years old and that it has the same hallmarks, the same influences, the same eclecticism. You know, it is ever evolving, constantly malleable. It's, you know, it is changing to adapt to every need. It comes in a thousand different flavors. It's not that weird. And I think that was enough. That in and of itself, I think was enough to cause the firestorm that erupted upon publication.

Adnan Hussain: Right. Well, I mean, because it is equally unpalatable and objectionable to those who are hostile to Islam as to many adherents of the religion because they want to think of it as special. It is the correct one. That's why I believe in it. It's because it's the one that's right. It's never changed.

Reza Aslan: The Islam that I practice is the Islam that the Prophet Muhammad practiced. Like, no, it's not, my friend. No, it's not.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Right. And also that, like, there can only be one version of whatever that idea of what the Prophet's Islam was. And, you know, that there couldn't be, you know, like the people forget, you know, many of the hadith and teachings, the sayings of Muhammad that talk about diversity being a rahmah, mercy, you know, I mean, for my ummah, you know, meaning that maybe there isn't just always going to be agreement on every aspect of it. But That's an alien kind of concept to people who think of religion as like a kind of authoritative manual, like a, you know, like a driver's manual for your car about how like life is supposed to work. And, you know, if it doesn't, if one component is said is malfunctioning, the whole thing is not going to work. And obviously they think of religion as very technical rather than, you know, the way you do describe in the book, which, you know, we'll get to a little bit more. But I do want to ask, you alluded to the firestorm of the reception, and we, you know, just sort of explained a little bit about why that might be the case on both sides, you know, agreement that, you know, Islam has to be something. And the feeling that I think you were alluding to, which is that Muslims, especially young Muslims that were having to kind of really live in the culture, really felt this kind of like, disjunction between what people say about what Islam is and what I feel and experience and practice, this kind of disjunction about it. I mean, it reminds me a little bit of Jasmine Zin's book from a couple, three years ago called Under Siege, Islamophobia and the 9-11 Generation, just how embattled in one's feeling of one's identity and also like Questions that would come, you know, like, am I wrong about what I believe to be the case? You know, so and it seems like that was also an important audience for your work. And so maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

Reza Aslan: I think I've said this before, but what's fascinating is that that was the unintended audience. I mean, I've I've admitted this many, many times. I wrote this book for non-Muslims. The whole point of this book was I'm going to explain to non-Muslims what Islam actually is. And I'm going to explain it in a way that they would understand. And I'm going to explain it by comparing it to traditions and religions that they may be more familiar with. And I'm going to sort of combat some of the misperceptions that they have had about Islam. What I never expected... was that this book was going to become a kind of manifesto for Muslims and particularly young Muslims, as you rightly say, who were being inundated by these messages of telling them what they actually believe. And I think a lot of them were confused by it a little bit. think that that's what I believe I'm not you know other people are telling me what my religion is but I don't feel like that's right but they may know better than than I do and that was just a beautiful experience because it was completely unexpected and I cannot tell you how many conversations that I have had over the last 20 years of Muslims who come up to me and say, your book saved my faith. I was at a place where I just thought, okay, well, I don't want to have anything to do with this if that's what it is. And then I read your book and I was like, no, that's what it is. I've always known this is what I believe. And now I have proof that this is what it is. And And by the way, I've experienced that in Malaysia. I've experienced it in Pakistan. I've experienced it in Egypt. I've experienced it all over the world where people have come to me and said, if it weren't for your book, I wouldn't be a Muslim anymore. Now, that was by no means the intention. I'm not trying to in any way. I'm not an imam. I'm not trying to make you religious in one way or another. But it is really fascinating and satisfying. that it's kind of played that role. And it still continues. I still, you know, run into 16-year-olds who will say, I just read it last week and now I understand why I believe the things that I believe. And it's, you know, as an author, it's rare that you get that kind of response, that kind of connection with your readers. And it's just been a wonderful two-decade journey.

Adnan Hussain: That's wonderful to hear. Must be very gratifying to know that your work has touched people in this profound sort of way. So I feel bad about asking about what's so, you know, about because clearly it was also meant to intervene in a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about Islam that like 20 years later, I wonder how you feel about the necessity of the new edition and also whether because I think it's a great book and obviously did a lot. And yet I look around at the world and I feel like maybe knowing in an intellectual way, the truth about the diversity of Islam and its historical unfolding, only goes so far in actually really changing how people really feel and the kind of politics that we've seen that it almost seems that in the aftermath of 9-11 and the Iraq War, the era when you were writing this book and when it was being received and so on, there was almost more interest in learning about Islam. Uh-huh. In curiosity about Islam, an opportunity really to kind of rethink things that in a way I'm not sure at this moment we've seen a lot of people be very committed to a politics of representing Islam and Muslims as a danger and a threat. And now it's less a kind of broad, like, you know, the threat of terrorism to a much more intimate kind of like we feel our whole way of life is at risk if we have these people who are foreign and alien and different from us. And Islam is a uniquely kind of like subversive and undermining religion. you know, kind of practice or religion that it's kind of become, you know, much more about like some kind of intimate sense of Western identity that feels at risk. So I'm wondering, like, you know, how you, you know, parse those contexts for all the great work that it may have done in certain constituencies. What's going on there, you know, and how did you try and maybe reflect on this when you were putting together revisions and things for this 20th anniversary? anniversary edition.

Reza Aslan: Well, it's funny. When the publisher brought up this point, they were like, hey, it's been 20 years. This book is still selling really well. Let's do an updated 20th anniversary edition. Here's the text. Do you want to go through and maybe update a few things here? Maybe change a line here or change a sentence there. I hadn't read it in 20 years and so i read it and i have to be honest with you i was a little taken aback by how optimistic i was about the future uh yeah there's so much optimism just dripping from this book And 20 years later, you know, I read it and I thought, geez, I mean, I don't know if the world is any better now than it was 20 years ago. It's probably way worse for a lot of other reasons. And so the kind of do you want to, you know, update a few things ended up being I rewrote some third of the entire book. I mean, literally just rewrote it. There's probably 5000 brand new words in this book. I rewrote so much of it that it screwed everything up and they had to do a whole new audio version. They had to, you know, it's basically a it's a rewrite. That's really what it is. And part of that process of rewriting made me really it forced me to analyze and to critique some of the assumptions that I had. And one of those assumptions was kind of like you rightly say, that if I could present information, knowledge in an accessible and entertaining way, it will go a long way towards battling the bigotry that, you know, is so prevalent in North America and in Europe when it comes to Islam and Muslims. And I don't know. I mean, I'd like to think that it's played some role in that. I, you know, the book was has become required reading in almost every military academy in the united states that can't be bad like that's got to be good i mean um it's become sort of required reading in the diplomatic circles that seems like it could be useful um and And as I say, it has been adopted by a lot of interfaith groups in those kinds of communities, young people. It's a standard text nowadays in universities, which is nice. But has it created a less Islamophobic society? No. No, it hasn't. And I've really been thinking about this a lot lately. And I actually... wrote a little bit about this over the last decade, it made me really re-examine what it means to combat bigotry. Because for so many, particularly of us sort of liberal intellectuals, right? We like to always say that, oh, that, you know, bigotry is a result of ignorance. So all you need to do if you're confronted with bigotry is combat it with information. and if you combat it with information then the bigotry goes away even as i say that i can see you laughing because it's just it sounds great in theory but it's absurd it's absolutely it's fundamentally false you know any any psychologist will tell you that it's false bigotry is not the result of ignorance bigotry is the result of fear and fear is impervious to data fear is impervious to information Right. No amount of information that I give my daughter is going to convince her that there's not a monster in the closet.

Adnan Hussain: Right.

Reza Aslan: Fear can only be combated in one way, and that is through relationships, through the hard slog of getting to know another. And so partly, I think, if we can talk about the decline in Islamophobic opinions in the United States, and there has been a decline since 9-11, there's no question about that. Partly that has to do with the fact that we are getting more used to seeing Muslims in the public sphere. I mean, the Muslim just became mayor of the largest city in America. We have Muslim actors, right? We have Muslim musicians, Muslim artists, Muslim politicians that... The more you see someone of another religion or sexual orientation or whatever the case may be, the more you see them as humans, the harder it becomes to label them as other. And this is partly why, you know, I've spent so much of the last decade not focusing my work exclusively on either books or academia or frankly, even religion. A lot of the work that I do now is in fiction, it's in film, it's in television. I'm writing a comic book. These are the things that I feel like have a far greater ability to break down the walls that separate us into different ethnicities, different religions, different skin colors, different races, all of that stuff. Art has always had that ability. Storytelling has always had that ability because fundamentally it's about the human condition. So, you know, I'm both... obviously pleased by the role that this book has had over the last two decades in transforming the way that we think about Islam as other. And also, I recognize how limiting that role has been and even could be. Regardless of how successful the book has become, it can only do so much.

Adnan Hussain: know um everything else it requires a different kind of storytelling of course and i think well that's a great point about storytelling which of course religions are really great at telling us stories and so there's a natural kind of connection between those things and i did want to say that i think you know, that the book is so well written, you know, I mean, that's clear that you are interested in that and you like to tell stories, you open with a story about an experience, you know, in this kind of opening chapter. And so there's definitely effectiveness that has come through that. But I think, you know, it is a very important point that in many ways it is experiences, maybe even in like civic work and collaboration, getting to know people, in a more intimate way and in the more creative work you're talking about, it's showing that it's not just information or even only mostly about information, but it's also about being able to imagine, you know, in different ways. And so that I'm well, I think everybody should be looking forward to some of the other things that are coming out and that you're doing. But, you know, getting to information, at least, I mean, since you wrote a history and people will be interested in that, I thought it would be interesting to kind of go back to like why you decided to take a historical approach in studying this major topic. You know, world religion, like, you know, there are different ways that one could try and present Islam and, you know, maybe one chapter about its origins, but then, you know, kind of move on. Here are the doctrines here. But you did, you know, and you do do all of that, but you did really kind of, I think, consciously want to emphasize Islam. history as being relevant and important for Islam as it might be for any religion. And so maybe you could tell us a little bit about choices for the historical approach and what you think it allows your readers to come to understand that question.

Reza Aslan: Well, partly it's personal. I'm just fascinated myself as a scholar, as a thinker in questions of origins. I'm fascinated. I mean, No God But God is about the origins of Islam. You know, Zealot, you mentioned, is about the origins of Christianity. God is about, well, the origins of God. And the questions of origins have always just personally fascinated me. So if I'm ever going to write any kind of book like this, I'm always going to start with not just the beginning, but what came before the beginning. But there is a... pedagogical aspect to it as well. And it goes back to something that you had said earlier, which I found really fascinating when you were talking about sort of where our ideas of religion comes from, how we think about what religion is or is not. and one of the things that i try to say all the time i actually write it in no gaba god is that we have this mistaken view that prophets invent religions that prophets that what makes them prophets is that they create a religion and that is incredibly unhistorical view prophets don't create religions prophets reform the religions out of which they grew up. Moses did not invent Judaism. Moses was probably a Yahwehist, a follower of this very... enigmatic and barely known deity that existed in the Sinai. And he used that. He reformed it and married it to the concept of El. And there we get Judaism out of that. Jesus didn't invent Christianity. Jesus was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews. The Buddha did not invent Buddhism. The Buddha was a Hindu. He was a Hindu reforming Hinduism. That's what he was doing. And the Prophet Muhammad was not a Muslim. Muhammad did not invent Islam. In fact, most historians, myself, one of them, think that probably no one called themselves Muslim or called this thing Islam until long after Muhammad's death. That's not what it was called, right? That's not how they understood themselves as this kind of absolutely brand new religious movement that came out of nowhere. No, this was a Judeo-Christian, more specifically Hanif, complicated, read the book, you'll get it, Reform movement. Prophets are reformers. And so the only way that you can truly understand that is to go back, right? To truly understand the world out of which these religions arose. Because prophets don't just show up in a vacuum, right? Every prophet, no matter how divine their message, lived in a particular time and place. So if you want to know, who they were, what they meant, you should probably know about their time and place. And so I think that to me was very important in starting the book where I began, which is like 200 years before the Prophet Muhammad was even born so that you understand that the ideas that he is espousing didn't just come out of nowhere. They came out of this milieu from which he arose. And of course they did. And by the way, that doesn't make it any less divinely inspired. It doesn't make it any less profound. On the contrary, if you ask me, it makes it even more profound that they were able to look at the world in which they lived and say, can think of a world that's better and this is what's better and then it works and it's the second largest religion in the world that to me it's far more impressive than you know a cipher that you know just sort of lives in a in a complete cultural and religious vacuum and just comes up with something brand new that's never been thought before

Adnan Hussain: Right. I mean, if it really was, people would not know how to react to it.

Reza Aslan: A hundred percent. You're so right. Right. If it really came out of nowhere, it wouldn't have worked.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, I mean, this is something, you know, I think is very important. And certainly when I teach, you know, early Islamic history into the medieval period, you know, I try and emphasize to people that there's a different narrative that one can look at, which is that helps explain, you know, the success of Islam is that it fit into the horizons and the needs and the kind of religious aspirations of the people who encountered it enough that they were like, okay, yeah, that could make sense to me. You know, if it had been something completely different and imported and had no relationship to the cultural conditions and social environment, you know, it would have been like anybody standing up somewhere and like, you know, Speaker's Corner and Hyde Park in London, you know, having all kinds of ideas and nobody pays any attention. It wouldn't have worked.

Reza Aslan: And by the way, for those who are listening and thinking to themselves, well, I don't see how that's true. I'll give you a perfect example. The prophet Zarathustra. The prophet Zarathustra who preached in, you know, probably sometime, we're not sure, but sometime around the first millennium BC. had views that were so unique and so foreign that they didn't work. For instance, one of his beliefs was that there was only one God. That was very hard to wrap your mind around when there was no such thing as monotheism at the time so by the time he died the idea that there's only one god monotheism became there's actually two gods dualism and that's what zoroastrianism is to this day it's a perfect example it doesn't work if you if you try something that's just completely foreign completely new regardless of the truth or the untruth of it people don't know what to do with that And so they transform it into something that makes much more sense to them.

Adnan Hussain: Right, right. Excellent example. So, you know, thinking about like what if you take an approach to normalize Islam as a major religion that developed over time and in a set of contexts, you know, rather than just sort of reducing it to, you know, some kind of narrow theological kind of abstracted position, you know, as these are its beliefs and that's always how, you know, it is. How do you talk about, like, questions of theology? Because I think you do a, you know, really successful job here talking about three, I would say, kind of key components of what we would think of Islam has expressed itself through or in different facets. One, the question of Islamic religious law and its whole development. Secondly, theology, you know, this question of belief, you know, and the range and variety and how that built upon some kind of historical context. And then something I appreciated so much that you also included as a major component of Islam, which has, I think, typically been ignored because of what's happened in modernity. And we'll talk a little bit about that. But this way of making any spiritual or mystical devotional orientation, Sufism, almost like the Orientalists sort of kind of characterized as, oh, that can't really be part of Islam. It's just some, you know, kind of der derivation from like other sources you know eastern you know mysticism and wisdom or eastern christian and of course there would be historical connections but to make it seem as if it's not an important part for such a long period of time for a vast majority of muslims so i wanted those three what you were trying to do with identifying these and what you had to say about those um in your book

Reza Aslan: I'm really glad you bring up the Sufism chapter. That's everybody's favorite chapter. Everybody's favorite chapter is the Sufism chapter, which I think really says something about the sort of human condition and this longing for transcendence that is endemic to who we are as human beings. I say this all the time. I am not a theologian. I'm a scholar of religions. And I think for some people, they don't understand the difference between the two. A scholar of religions is someone who studies religion. A theologian is someone who studies God. But it is obviously quite difficult to talk about religious history without dipping your toes into questions of theology. And in particular, when you're approaching questions of religion from a position of faith which i am i'm a person of faith and i'm also a scholar and so you know a lot of my work is about bringing those two aspects together um being able to uh critique a religion to analyze it through the the lens of history while at the same time taking it seriously as a profound expression of this human desire for transcendence right um and as a fellow scholar you know that that's unique right that most of our colleagues study religion the way that a biologist studies you know cells They just look at it through a microscope. Isn't this interesting? The weird things that people believe, isn't that fascinating? That's not how I am. I take belief seriously, but I'm also quite critical when it comes to my study of religion. But when you do that, when you approach the academic discipline of religion from a position of faith, then it allows precisely for what you are saying, right? It allows for just simply taking faith seriously, allows for a depth in the conversation, in the investigation of religious language, religious phenomenology, religious history that sort of breaks through the surface, the shell, if you will, and really gets to the heart of the matter, which is, as I say, this evolutionary impulse that our species has to strive for that which exists beyond the material realm, right? And to take that seriously as part of the human condition. And that's all it really takes, right? And I think for a lot of people, both believers and non-believers, think they appreciate that right I said you know one of the most satisfying parts about this book was the way that it was adopted by Muslims but another really satisfying part about it is the way that atheists right materialists people who don't take religion seriously at all really have come to this book and a lot of the religion books that I write have come to it from this place where not only do they appreciate the kind of critical examination of religious history, but they actually come to appreciate the compassion with which I write about belief itself. And it kind of tempers some of the this sort of instinctual criticism or just this kind of thing that sometimes exists amongst non-religious people or even anti-religious people, this kind of desire to kind of make fun of or just dismiss as the product of an irrational or diseased mind, the idea that a person could possibly believe in any of this. And I think that the breaking through to that community is probably the thing I'm most proud of as a writer and a thinker of religions.

Adnan Hussain: That's really interesting because I see that as like a really big challenge and that I witness, you know, you know, in progressive lefty goals, you know, it's very hard for people to reconcile themselves to appreciating religion or at least faith. You know, maybe more than, you know, religion in some ways. Yeah, they'll be quite, quite open and pluralistic about religion.

Reza Aslan: Sure. Religion. That's great. Faith. Oh, no, that's that's ridiculous.

Adnan Hussain: Like actually stuff, you know, that's that's right. That's right. Yeah. And I mean, I think it's a kind of narrowness in some ways of being able to. Again, you know, so much of this is not not really, really being humanistic, you know, like in the real sense of recognizing that there are so many complexities to what it means to be a human. And there's so many needs, you know, that everything can't be covered just by some kind of rationalist approach to everything. That's not actually how anybody really lives. Just because some people have a more. kind of concerted or conscious organized way in which they deal with the things that can't just be reduced to reason doesn't invalidate it because we're all trying to find ways to cope with, you know, difficulties and grief and all these things. And it's just, this is a resource that people, some people have in a conscious way. So I think that's very important work in some sense, if you've been able to reach people to give them a more of a sense of what might be at stake for people in faith that shouldn't just be dismissed. So anyway, I really appreciate that aspect. I'm very surprised to hear about that because I encounter so many occasions where in circles where you're, you know, talking about justice and talking about economic and political justice and social justice. And yet it's very difficult for people to work with. And, you know, people, others who are people of faith, they just see that as inimical somehow to the project. Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating.

Reza Aslan: Well, that's why it, you know, I always, when I talk about faith, I, I always talk about it in its kind of, like biological sense, you know, in its evolutionary sense, you know, I, you know, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to kind of, you know, convince somebody who believes that nothing exists beyond the material realm, that there's even a reason to strive beyond that. But if you do it through the language that they already accept, then it opens up all kinds of avenues for connection and discussion.

Adnan Hussain: Oh, that's great. Well, I wanted to come because you're being very generous with your time. So I just wanted to come to the latter parts of the work to touch upon where you kind of return to direct history and its consequences on Islam as a religion and Muslim culture and the way in which encountering Western colonialism um and new forms of autonomy and values of how to organize and meet kind of broader social aspirations emerges historically in the muslim world you discuss colonialism islam and democracy essentially and then very interestingly and this is where in the past maybe you would say you were more optimistic about the future of both sides of all of this you know but um you know about the future and so i want to talk at some point about the future but you know you return to history what did you think was very important um to analyze and to represent about how colonialism, for example, has had serious consequences on the shape of modern experiences of Muslims and of the religious movements that have emerged.

Reza Aslan: Yeah, it's funny because know it always comes back to colonialism and i don't want to sound you know like that guy because you know that guy um but we're talking about an era in which 90 of the world's muslims lived under direct colonial rule i mean just wrap your mind around that for a minute so to pretend that the colonialist experience, which was explicitly defined as a Christianizing mission. I mean, that's the thing that I think sometimes gets lost that colonialism, yes, it was presented under the guise of a civilizing mission, but civilization meant Christianity. That's what it meant explicitly, not sort of implicitly. And then perhaps even more importantly than the colonialist experience was the end of the colonialist experience, the way in which colonialism came to this abrupt end at the end of the Second World War and left behind these absolutely shattered communities, these shattered societies. that had spent two centuries or more being attacked and stripped of their cultural and religious affiliations. And then we're surprised that in the latter half of the 20th century, there was all this tumult and political chaos in these decolonized lands. And as true quote unquote Westerners, We blame them for that political instability because we wipe ourselves, wipe our hands clean of any influence or responsibility that we may have had in that tumult. And then all of which of course culminates with the attacks of 9-11. You really cannot tell the story of contemporary Islam without telling the story of the pernicious influence and consequences of European colonialism on Muslim people's Muslim lands. The very idea that, you know, many of these countries in the Middle East that we look to as representative of everything that's wrong with Islam were created wholly by white men sitting in rooms who were just drawing random maps random lines on maps for the sole reason of more easily divvying them up amongst themselves and then who are surprised by the fact that it's not working, that the nationalism that is so prevalent in the UK doesn't seem to exist in Iraq. So there must be something wrong with Iraq. And the thing that's wrong with them isn't that it's a fake country created by Winston Churchill. And so I think to me, yes i do spend a lot of time on that principle but because it is such a touchstone in the story of islam you really can't tell that story without that moment because everything that we talk about today You know, from the struggle for Islamic democracy to the fight for Islamic pluralism, to the sort of rising of Islamic feminism, to the very notion of the Islamic Reformation that I write about. None of that happens without the colonial experience.

Adnan Hussain: yeah that's right and i think that does flow you know very nicely to talking about some of those kind of questions about um islamic pluralism democracy um you know how these can be integrated what the tensions were around them and the consequences of this era of colonialism because if you look at the modern middle east i mean so many questions of sovereignty, you know, were secured really by kind of military style revolutions, you know, in response to the suppression of democratic politics in the colonial era. So they were tainted with a kind of failure or with like not really reflecting and representing, you know, sovereignty and so on. So it had so many of these devastating consequences. But I wonder, how does one, you know, especially in your thinking, see those effects or where the the lines of possibility are in, you know, the future? I mean, because that's what you're really talking about is trying to really imagine drawing upon. And this is what I like so much about the, about the work is drawing upon a better understanding of the diverse histories, the historical changes and differing, you know, kind of communities, you know, the different cultures where Islam has been practiced and how that has had consequences that you can't make this monolithic unified community. you know, there's a certain unity to this cultural tradition, but it also accommodated so many diverse sources and orientations and so forth. How appreciating that might be relevant for contemporarily being able to have more comfort with pluralistic approaches for a, you know, you know, a, a, an open future for you know islam relevant in people's lives and in their relationship to the world so i wanted to like ask you about that good question here here's what i would say is that from the moment of the death of the prophet muhammad the principle

Reza Aslan: focus of Muslims has been with defining what the Ummah is. The Ummah, the worldwide body of Muslims. What is this thing? Is it an Arab ethnicity? Because that's what it was when the Prophet Muhammad died. The Ummah meant Arabs. That's what it meant. And then, you know, you get to like the 700s and it's like, okay, fine. You know, it's not about ethnicity. It's about belief. Okay, but what kind of belief, right? You have this sort of major division between, you know, Sunni and Shia. And then, of course, all the micro communities that come around there. So what is the Ummah then? And then maybe it's empire. No, the Ummah means empire. That's what it means. So that's how you define it. And then the empire collapses. And it's like, okay, no, the Ummah is the caliphate. That's what it is. Okay, nobody really takes the caliphate seriously. It doesn't mean anything to most people. And then it goes away. Okay, so then what is the Ummah? No, the Ummah is the nation state. That's what the Ummah is. The nation state is a foreign concept that was forcibly pressed upon people who had no notion or idea or really, frankly, interest in it. What is the Ummah? What is this thing? And in many ways, you know, the conflicts that we see, not just between Islam, Muslim and non-Muslim, but more specifically within Islam itself, is predicated on this idea of what is the Ummah? Who gets to be a part of it? That's the first and most fundamental question. And that is the question that has been utterly transformed in the last 20, 30 years with the rise of the internet and social media. And this is, by the way, not just an issue with Islam, it's an issue with just religion in general. Think about it this way. For much of the last 200,000 years in which Homo sapiens have existed, The definition of community has been the people around you. That's what community means. Your community is the people who are physically around you. That has been the definition until the last 20 years or so. Now, community and the concept of community is no longer geographically bounded anymore. It's conceivable, it's absolutely possible, I've seen it, that a young Muslim in Detroit might have far more in common with a Muslim in Jakarta than either of those two have with anyone in their own actual community. And more importantly, not because of their religious beliefs or their views, but because of their taste in music. or their taste in movies, what we now refer to academically as post materialist values, right? Values that are not about safety or sustenance or shelter. This is revolutionary. This new definition of community is changing the world, but it is profoundly changing Islam. Because for the first time, it's no longer a conversation about what is the ummah. It's now, I have my own ummah. It's my Facebook group. That's my ummah. It's not the people in my mosque. It's not the people in my neighborhood. It's not even the people in my country. it's the people who appreciate a certain you know kind of music or or art form or whatever the case may be people who whose values are centered around their sexual orientation or whatever the case may be and this group is where i find my sense of identity and indeed even my sense of salvation what does this mean for the future i mean it's it's hard to say because it's it's happening right before our eyes you know we'll need a hundred years or so to figure out what this era that we are currently living in is going to result in but if you are unaware of how transformative this is going to be you're not really paying attention

Adnan Hussain: Well, I guess what's interesting to think about how, you know, the kinds of social and cultural groups that can form as a result of social media and interaction, how do they bear upon religion and religious identity? Because there is something at stake in some sense of the universal. You're right that the ummah could be redefined. But, you know, usually it's kind of... kind of universalist sort of like, you know, concept, at least in the abstract, and that social media in some ways may, you know, create the possibility not just for micro communities, though those are clearly forming, but also more of a sense of being able to be connected with this broader kind of geographically expansive and culturally diverse. And I'm thinking about the way in which, for example, during the contemporary environment, you know, that both after 9-11, what it meant to be a Muslim. I remember many people who said, you know, like, I'm not really that practicing or anything, but now I really feel Muslim.

Reza Aslan: You're forced into the identity, yeah.

Adnan Hussain: And I think also what we're seeing, you know, over the last couple of years during the course of, you know, the question of Palestine and politics has become one that you know, is something that people can connect with both what's happening there, but also just broadly through social media with like a question of what it means to be part of the ummah is to like care about, you know, Muslims, you know, all over the world or, you know, this kind of thing. So I think there is a tension both to the micro of what you experience in like-minded people that you discover in social media, and at the same time, an imaginative kind of space that's very different from what it was like with conventional and national media and national identities, you know, in eras past when you didn't have the facilitation of an imaginative interlinkage, you know, that was the horizons were somewhat limited maybe in the abstract you'd say all muslims but how did you actually know or feel like you were connected with all muslims well now you're seeing people posting everywhere and you can kind of feel like okay yeah we agree on this we disagree on that so that's kind of an interesting component is also maybe the universalizing kind of component of it as well that's a very good point it's a very good point

Reza Aslan: Yeah, it's again, I think there's it's so fascinating to be living through this era and being aware of these seismic changes that are taking place, not just in the definition of community, but also in the dispersal of authority, in the notion of, you know, anyone with a social media handle now, anyone with a TikTok account can become what I call the cyber mufti, you know? You have no religious training whatsoever, but I've got a million followers. So I've got way more, say way more influence than your, you know, your imam does. And it's good and bad, you know, I mean, it's, this is the problem with the individuation of religious authority is that it can lead to pluralistic and peaceful and feminist interpretations of a religion and it can lead to violent and bigoted and misogynistic interpretations of religion who's right well i guess whoever has the the most followers you know um but this is also the reality of religion this is what religion is it's what it's always been and i think you know to pretend otherwise is to be ignorant of history

Adnan Hussain: Absolutely. Well, there's so much one could talk about, but I really appreciate you taking the time and being so generous to reintroduce this book and some of the updates and the things that you're thinking about now. I think everyone's going to be interested as we look towards the future, the future of religion. Also be interested to see what you're doing in the future. If you have anything that you'd like to tell listeners about, it would be great for them to know what they should be looking forward to and how to follow you.

Reza Aslan: Well, you can't follow me anymore because I deleted all my social media accounts and I've never been happier.

Adnan Hussain: probably a good idea.

Reza Aslan: Yeah, I suggest everyone else do that. Here, I just gave this whole lecture about how social media is transforming religion. But, you know, I'm OK. Well, so currently I'm doing a number of things. I am switching focus and working a lot more on film and television, as I mentioned, and a lot more in fiction. And, and, you know, that sort of, you know, same kind of message, but different platforms. But I am writing a one more religion book, I keep saying I'm done with religion books, and then they just keep I just keep doing it. But I'm this one really is the end. I'm writing a book for Princeton University Press, called What is religion? And it's kind of I see it as my Well, maybe magnum opus is the wrong way to put it, but it's sort of my, my final farewell to the the topic and the discipline sort of a synthesis of you know all of my work and theories about what religion actually is um and then uh and then that's kind of it for me a coda a code that's a great yeah yeah yeah well hopefully you'll come back and talk about that work when

Adnan Hussain: It's available because I'm sure listeners and watchers to this discussion will be intrigued and interested. And I do want to just promote again, one more time to encourage listeners and so forth to get the copy of no God, but God in addition to it being updated version, as you heard with new writing and, and, substantial revisions it also has you know new preface and framing we didn't even really talk as much about that as we could have I thought the the clash of monotheisms was a very interesting uh kind of part of the preface and we could you know delve further into that but listeners and readers uh listeners you should go read that but it also has a very substantial study guide you know in the back which is really helpful for people

Reza Aslan: Yeah, that was that was great. That was a last minute idea was to include this study guide had existed and you could get it separately, but to include it in the book was, I think, really a nice little addition.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's worth if you already have a copy, it may be still worth getting the 20th anniversary edition. I know many people out there have a copy because it was a best bestseller. But I want to thank you so much, Reza, for coming on. It's really been a pleasure. to talk with you. And we'll look forward to more of your work. And hopefully you'll come back on to talk about, you know, what is religion at some point.

Reza Aslan: I'd be delighted. Thanks. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Adnan Hussain: All right. And listeners, if you're interested in some of these religion kind of aspects, I do want to just tell you about my series on the names of God that I do with a colleague and friend, a psychologist, Mark Applebaum. And we're going through the 99 names and perhaps beyond, because as everyone knows, the names of God are infinite. There may be 99 that are part of the tradition, but we'll start with the 99. And we're very early in this series, so I want people to know about it. The next episode that should be coming out is on Ar-Rahman, which I think is one of the really important of the names, especially connecting with the themes that Reza was talking about, about pluralism and