I just finished reading Resa Aslan’s  No God but God.  He provides a comprehensive and compassionate overview of the history and development of Islam: from the Prophet’s biography; the Prophet’s creation of an egalitarian, pluralistic, and compassionate community (the Ullama in Medina), this history of the community trying to figure out how continue faithful to the Prophet’s teaching and example; the intellectual and cultural strains within the community that have led to many streams of Islam, and an overview of the three larges strains of Islam, the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Sufi. He examines the various experiments in negotiating the boundaries between the religious and political leadership of the community, and the tensions between Traditionalist, Modernest, and Reformist branches of intellectual thought and development.

Resa Alsan’s critical thinking, articulate language, powerful scholarship, and compassionate understanding help me not only have a better understanding of one of the worlds largest religions, but also to understand myself better as a Christian, a product of Western Civilization, and an American. To read the history and struggles of Islam, to compare and contrast those struggles and development with the history of Christianity and understanding the profound integration and importance of religion in United States’ “secular” government and hence to give up some of the fear engendered by phrases like “Islamic State” we hear in our fear mongering media.