Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20140823

Googled Muslim Statements against violence and found nothing. Guest can i use the word bs on tv . Could i use the word bs on cable . [laughter] really you muzzle shugrue gold then a council for islamic American Relations or the Muslim British Council and seven arabia and the grand ayatollah you the American Society for muslims advancement . None of those came up big your Google Search . There is something wrong with your google. Host our guest for the past three errors on booktv reza aslan. No god but god, the origins, evolution, and future of islam had 2005. Beyond fundamentalism a rigidly called how to win a cosmic war. International best seller zealot came out last year. You have been watching booktv on cspan2. Think you. I really enjoyed it. One of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to control everything either create composition and potential dissidents everywhere. If you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one says, no, i dont want to paint that like to you have just made him into a political dissident. If you want to subsidize housing in this country and we want to talk about it in the populous agrees that it is of the we should popularize then put it on the Balance Sheet and make it clear and make it evident and make everybody aware of how much it is costing. Fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver the subsidy to open up to the Public Company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a good way of subsidizing home ownership. Christopher hichens, and applebaum, and Gretchen Morgan some of our view of the 41 engaging stories in cspan sundays at eight now available at your favorite books of. For the next three hours a conversation with author and professor reza aslan on book tv in depth. The religious scholar talks about islamic fundamentalism, religious misunderstandings, and instability in the middle east. This nonfiction work includes no gun but god, beyond fundamentalism, and his most recent release a zealot. Host reza aslan, where does the phrase no god but god come from . Guest mohamad is god. It is essentially the phrase that initiates a convert into the muslim faith in. The phrase that initiates a convert into the muslim faith. Host you also write it not look that now, islam is available to all muslims and every muslim can speak for islam. It is interesting. This in many ways is the same process that of great religions go through. You have a profit who is primarily a reformer, not a creator of religion. That is an important thing for people to understand. , we have this misperception that a profit is someone who invents a religion, but it is someone who reformers the religion and the cultural and social purview in which he lives jesus did not create christianity. He was as you preaching about your day is an. But it did not create buddhism. The was reforming hinduism. The think the same is true with the profit on it. To given to all the profits that came before. What happens is eventually the profit passes. And now it is the responsibility of the profits followers to figure out a way to make sense of the words and actions of this profit. That is when religion is first founded. And the religion is a manmade institution requires a power structure. Cahuenga awesome much and with the new the process are not put on how much you can accumulate about the traditions of the theology that was espoused by the profit. It has these massive institutions. But if you follow that time line on it doesnt take a long time for individuals to start complaining about that institution. Serve recognizing that there is a bit of a gap between what the institution had to say and what the profit has to say. That is when you have this crash between individuals and institutions that happens in of religious traditions over who gets to define faith. The term that scholars view for that crashes reprobation. And you write that religion is by definition interpretation and by definition of investigations, interpretations are pallid. People dont like that saying, when i said that. Religious people dont like it. Religious people like to think that there is one version of christianity, one version of islam, one version of judaism, but it is there version. The problem is when you are confronted with sacred such scriptures what you have in front of you did not really exist in the back backcountry scripture without interpretation it is just words on the page. Requires someone to encounter it, interpret it. And in doing so one cannot help but bring ones own preconceived notions, ones political and economic and social views, why are there a thousand different versions of christianity, a thousand different versions, precisely for that reason. And so as interpretation it becomes difficult to say this interpretation is wrong in this interpretation is right. Now, i do want to say one important thing. You can say that one particular interpretation is more reasonable. You can say it is more historically accurate. Use the same bible to argue their differing viewpoints. Theyve used the exact same verses to argue their viewpoint. That is the power of scripture and the power of religion. Now, and an institutionalized religion, one in which there is an authority structure, papacy, what have you, whenever you want to call it, that has a complete monopoly over the interpretation of faith. You can maintain the level of control. I mean, the pope can actually say to a catholic theologian, you are wrong. Your interpretation is not correct. Indeed, if you continue to pursue your interpretation i will excommunicate you and you are no longer a part of this community. There is nothing like that in islam orgy day isnt, for that matter. There is no centralized religious authority. And what that means that anything goes. In the interpretation is now a valid interpretation. There is no one, no referee to know when to say you are wrong and you are right. And so it becomes a great shouting match. Again, i think paralleling yesterday is an and islam, the problem is that there are about 15 million jews. It is an argument that is happening not at the global stage. You have the oneandahalf billion muslims having this argument. When you look at the complex and the middle east, muslim democrats and muslim autocrats fighting against each other, peacemakers and lawmakers arguing against each other you are seeing is precisely the result of this reformation process, this individualization, the process where by the authority to define the state is being removed, cs, i should say from the hands of these institutions is that have crept it for most of the last 14 century and theyre now being led by any individual with a megaphone. Host what of the similarities . Guest there are two ways answer that question. Medically theyre very much representative of a single prostatic. Another risk of what youre seeing is an understanding. Something that can be passed on from profit to profit. Atom to atom. Moses pitbull of the prophet mohammad. That is certainly the way that is presented. It really cease this as a continuation and indeed a prophetic consciousness that is just sort of moving along through history, a sort of historical account of gone selfrevelations to humanity. That is one. Certainly the value and more are almost identical, the notion of mans responsibility, the idea of the relationship between creator and creation, the duty at that humanity has toward the creator through worship, praise him, to obey them. The concept of an afterlife is similar. Concept of the cosmos are similar. But i think more importantly what you see with these three religions is a desperate attempt to, i guess, i would say bring the expense between humanity and got closer together. There is this sort of mythic quality that god is physically appalled. If you want to put it in as simple way, the history of religion, the monotheistic religions are not. This attempt to create less of a distance between god and humanity, to bring this gap to a close. It is an attempt to say that there is no gap between humanity and god because god became human which is like christianity is so profoundly successful as a global religion. These faiths are intimately intertwined, medically, historically, morally really. Political books. A very good question. Im going to answer it a different way. This notion that religion and politics are separate things. A very new idea. N our religion in all parts of the world is far more a matter of identity that is a matter of belief and practices. Let me give you an example of what i mean by this. According to the q form about seven out of ten americans self identify as christians. Us think about that for a moment. Seven out of ten americans gutted church on sunday. Seven out of ten americans read the bible on a regular basis let alone actually follow its precepts. Seven of the ten americans will tell you anything about jesus except that he was born in a major and data across. Of course not. The vast majority when they say i was a christian, not making some much of faith declaration as a statement of identity. That is about who they are as individuals. How they see themselves in an indeterminate world. Your religion fills your politics and economic views, social glue. And always we only pretend that religion and politics of separate, but they are not. Theyre very much a part of the same multifaceted identity that individuals a spouse. What am i d politics are separate things, but they are not. They are very much a part of the same and with regard to this it is a very important thing to recognize that the phrase i am a jew, i am a christian and everyg else, its a very important thing to recognize the phrase iem a jews, i am a christian, i am a month on has less to do with the circuit i believe commended for the rituals i followed than it does with this is how i see my self as a person. This is how i unders and my role in the world and my relationship to the creator. Host as far as our hominid whiskers turned, the jews and christians are people of the book. Who is supposed to the pagans and polytheists of arabia worship the same god, read the same scriptures and share the same moral falla says Muslim Community . Mohammed align his community with the jews and medina because he considered them as well as the christians to be part of hezbollah. What is oman . Guest ummah is a word that unity. We are not exactly sure where the word comes from. Bbc brew, maybe aramaic. Nobody really knows. But theres no way to define that kind of new group, the church that they were trying to create. The way that the prophet views the organization is that it was inclusive of other faiths. Not poly theistic faiths. If were a pagan, your worshiped other gods, an outsider, you did not belong. But if you were people of the book, which by which it meant jews and christians and also included zorra austrians in the group, you were seen as part of the ummah, and that is really unique in the history of religions. In fact, the koran refers to something called thei ummal katalb, the mother of books. Its saying that there is this kind of heavenly scripture, in god, a physical book in heaven with god, from which all scriptures of the world come, and so, in other words, if you talk all the scriptures of the world, the torah, the gospel, the koran, the gotha and combine them together you get this one heavenly book. Thats quite a remarkable statement for a scripture to make. Not only is it validating other scriptures but saying something quite unique that all these religions are intimately connected. The koran says something along the lines of god could have given you one prophet and one scripture if he wanted to, but he chose to make you into different communities, quote, so that you may know one another. Now, this notion of jews and christians as fellow believers did not last much longer after the prophet mohammads death. Within a generation or so the scriptural scholars very quickly transformed jews and christians into unbelievers and separated islam from its parent religion as a way of creating independence, if you will, in other words, what they believed was that the koran annulled the previous scriptures. But thats not what the koran ever says. The koran says it completes the other scriptures, but it sees those scriptures as part and parcel of this larger mother of books in heaven. Quite unusual in the history of religion. Host one more quote allings are bound to the social, spiritual, and cultural milieu from which they arose and developed. It is not the prophets to create religions. Prophets redefine and reinterpret the existing beliefs and practices of the commune,ni proving fresh setsf symbols and metaphors in which succeeding generations can describe the nature of reality. Indeed it is most often the prophets successors who take upon themselves fashioning their masters words into deeds into comprehendible religious systems, and muhammad never claimed to have invented a new religion. Guest right. Right. Again, its people of religions who have the biggest problem with that kind of notion. First because, of course, they want to believe that their religious ideas, their values, their interpretations, can be linked directly to the prophet, whether it be mohammad or moses or jesus or the buddha or what have you and that is rarely, rarely the case. But most importantly, because home of religion want to believe that their religious views are static, they are monolithic, you hear this a lot in large religions with multiple sects by christianity and islam. Muslims and christians like to say their particular christianity, their particular islamism is correct and all the other ones are incorrect. But when you study the worlds religions you understand quickly there is no such thing as correct religion. There is no such thing as islam. There is no such thing as christianity. There are only christianities and islams. And that there are almost infinite varieties through history in the beliefs and practices, the interpretations of these religions, and that each one of these varieties is inextricably tied to the cultural milieu, the political milieu, out of which they arise. Islam is important. By the way, what i find really unusual about what im saying right now is that most rationalminded people would say, well, of course, that sounds true. When you think about christianity, of course there are 100 ways of understanding christianity, but then when you make the same statement about islam, oh, no, no, no, theres islam is monolithic, but of course islam, like christianity, comes in every flavor that you can imagine. Take a plane from new york to london, from london to baghdad, from baghdad to istanbul, from istanbul to jakarta, from jakarta to you will never see the same islam twice. Host who is the historic muhammad . Prophet muhammad was a fascinating character. He belonged to a very small, fairly insignificant clan, which was part of an enormous and extremely significant and wealthy tribe. So, if you will, he was part of this kind of ruling system but an outcast in that ruling system. He was an orphan, in a society in which orphans had no real protection whatsoever. A society that was deeply stratified between the very wealthy and the poor, and he hat sort of figure out through his own social and business acumen how to become a very successful merchant. In other words, by the time he became around 40 years old, he had figured out a way to use this system that had amassed enormous amounts of wealth at the top to its own benefit, its own advantage. He seems to have been a deeply spiritual man, to the his speier to allity was steeped in the pagan culture of which he arose, something that muslims dont like to think about, muhammad was a product of his world, he didnt just drop from heaven and live in a vacuum for 40 years before he became a prophet. But eventually that spiritual longing led him to have a series of ecstatic experiences in which he claims to have had direct messages from god, condemning the economic disparitiy, the special disparity in his society. And you notice i keep using these terms, economic and social disparity, because the fascinating thing about the k prophet, muhammads message, ate least in the first decade or so in which he was receiving these revelations they had very little to do with theological or legalistic concerns. They were overwhelmingly a condemnation of the wealthy and the powerful, a promise of judgment to those who exploit the poor and the marginalized, the weak, the dispossessed, a commandment to protect those who cannot protect themselves, the orphans, the widows, those who have been left behind by this mass accumulation of wealth, and what i think is very important for people to understand again, thissing is something that muslims just sort of have a hard time recognizing because they like to think of the Prophet Muhammad as purely a religious figure, someone who had this brand new idea there was only one god, which was not brandnew at all all. Every area in the Arabian Peninsula heard this message a thousand times. One thing i write about in the book, which is new to a lot of muslims, prearabia were awash in religion. Hundreds of christian groups and jewish groups, and another group of preislamic mono theists, all of whom believed there was only one god, and in fact the pagans themselves more or less believed there was only one god. They just thought that god was just inaccessible and there were these other lower gods that you could go to for your sun mix faces. The phrase, there is no god but god, would have elicited a collective yawn from preislamic arabia, but the condemnation of the Economic Situation in arabia, the political situation, that was intolerable to the ruling powers and that is where the friction between the prophet, muhammad, and the massive tribe that ruled the mecca, originally came from. That is where the conflict and the clash came from, and by the way,88i that should sound familr to people familiar with other prophetic histories, especially the history of jesus. Jesus conflict with the authorities of his time had far less to do with theological doctrine than social and economic issue. Thats what a prophet does. A prophet is a reformer, not a creator, of religion. Host when did muhammad live, which century . Guest well, the traditions say he was born in the year 570, a. D. Thats most certainly not historical an accurate date. The fact of the matter is inco preislamic arabia, birthdays were not significant events so nobody knew when the Prophet Muhammad was born, and nobody cared until he was declared to be a prophet. But we go with 570 as the traditional date so lets just say near the end of the sixth century. Then he died somewhere sort of in the first third of the seventh century. This was really unique about the Prophet Muhammad when it comes to the prophetic hoyt that many people are familiar with, is that we usually hear about our prophets being failures. That is kind of the history of prophethood that one expects, a prophet gets a message from god. Nobody listens to him. He usually dies in disgrace. And then after he dies, people say, oh, he was right, and we should have listened to him all along. What is unique about the Prophet Muhammad is that while he was disadvantaged and disgraced for the first half of his prophetic experience, the second half was enormously successful. He actually succeeded. He created a little statelet based on his revelations, and interestingly enough, its that success that i think creates the greatest amount of suspicion among nonmuslim, about the Prophet Muhammad. He couldnt have possibly been a prophet of god because he succeeded, because his message took, because people listened, s. Until around the start of the fourth century when the empore constantine converts to christianity, and begins the process of turning christianity into the official religion of rome. The problem for constantine, however, is that there are about 100 different kinds of christianity, and you cant have christianity be the imperial religion of the worlds most powerful empire unless it comes in one flavor, and so constantine quite famously takes the leaders of the christian movement, the bishops of the christian movement, he locks them up in a room, in a small town, and he is essentially says, do not come out of this room until you figure out what christianity is, because it can only be one thing. And of course the bishops come up with what is known as the creed, defineing more or less what orthodox christianity shall be. But what happened immediately after the council is that all of these versions of christianity overnight become illegal, and anyone who who espouses those vs has three choices, either get the heck out of rom as fast as possible, convert to ortho dock christianity orthodox christianity, or die. What happens is you have this flooding into the lands of the middle east, of this Christian Communities who want to maintai their faith bus cannot do so in rome. So where do they go . They go to iran, to north africa, and they go to the Arabian Peninsula. So, 200 years later, by the time the Prophet Muhammad arises, he is living in a world that is full of christians but not the kind of Orthodox Christians that you see in rome. Certainly not the orthodox trinutarian christians. The are referred to as nostiy, who rejected the motion of the trinity, and so for the Prophet Muhammad, he would have been very familiar with this one particular version of christian thought. By the way, just as he would have been extremely familiar with judahism, because they were successful and wellestablished, all of this is to say that the Prophet Muhammad was born and grew up in a world steeped in jewish and christian thought, jewish and christian mythology. Theres a reason why, when you read the koran, when it sometimes restates the Great Stories of the hebrew scriptures, be it stories about jacob or joseph or moses or abraham, it often begins those stories with the words recall or remember. Recall when moses received the commandments. Remember what happened to joseph when he fled from his brothers. The reason for that it is quite simple. The koran is repeating stories that it assumes its audience is already familiar with, and indeed they would have been familiar with it because these stories were part of the milieu of preislamic arabia. Host how political wasp]c constantines movement to christianity . Guest i get that question a lot. Most scholars would say it was pure lay political decision. After all, constantine was immersed in a civil war over other claimants to the throne of emperor, and that the sort of sudden conversion to christianity was whether it was intended to or not, the sort of the one element that pushed him over to the over the top and allowed him to claim the throne for himself. Im one of these historians who tends to think we should probably just take people at their word. If constantine says he had a spiritual experience in which jesus came to him and told him to believe in him, lets just go ahead and take his word for it. Were there political implications or perhaps political ideas behind this conversion . Certainly so. But who are we to judge a persons soul . Host good afternoon and welcome to booktvs monthly prom called in depth. We talk to one author before his or hers body of work. This month we have International Best seller, reza aslan. Here are his nonfiction books. He began in 2005 with no god but god, beyond fundamentalism. Beyond fundamental limp, confrontening religious extremism in the aim of globalization, came out in 2010. And zealot came out last year, the life and times of jesus christ of nazareth. Also teaches creative writing at uc riverside, got his bachelors degree at accept clara, masters in divinity at harvard, masters in fine arts at the university of iowas writers are workshop, and a ph. D at Uc Santa Barbara and that was a religion ph. D, wasnt it . Host thats right. I got my degree from the Sociology Department because my dissertation was of the god of heaven and earth coming down in the form of a child dying for our sins, this promise that all who believe in him shall also never die but have eternal life. I never heard anything like this before in my life. I immediately converted to this particularly conservative brand of evanevangelical brand of christianity, and i began preaching it to everyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not. Frankly. But when i went to university and began to study the new testament for a living, what i discovered was a great dista then what i discovered was a great distance in my church, and the jesus of history, as i was studying him at university. These were different individuals, and i know that that really disturbs a lot of people. Both people of faith and people without faith. Because we think that they are the same. Thats the jesus of history and the christ of faith are the same person, but theyre not the same person. The christ of faith is devoid from the jesus of history, certainly derived from the jesus of history, certainly, but this jesus of history, this jewish, peasant, revolutionary who lived in the back woods of gala lee 2,000 years ago, was so much more accessible and appealing that while i left christianity as a faith i became absolutely obsessed with learning everything i coulduv about this man and found him to be so much more extraordinary and indeed i would say so much more worth following than the christ of faith. Host were you raised a muslim . Guest i was, i came from a fairly lukewarm muslim family in iran. We were culturally muslim, the way so many people around the world are culturally religious. When we moved to the United States in 1979, of course, this was in the height of the iran hostage crisis and being a muslim was not the easiest thing to be in the United States. I and my family really sort of scrubbed our lives of anything that hinted at islam. For me especially it was way of absorbing into american culture. I was a seven, eightyearold boy and i wanted to be normal. I didnt want to stan out in any way. But i always have been deeply interested in religion, despite the fact i didnt come from a very religious family or receive any kind of religious or spiritual edification in my household. I think partly it had to do with experience of revolutionary iran, those images of the power that religion has to transform a society for good and for bad, never left me, and created this indelible and deep desire to know more about religion and spirituality, despite the fact i didnt have an opportunity to do so until i was 15 years old, and had an opportunity to express it. But ive always been interested in religion. Ive always been interested in religious history, religious archaeology, religious literature, religious spirituality, things that fascinate me to no end. Host 202 is the area code, 5853880. If you would like to participate in our conversation with afternoon, and you live in the east and central time zone, 5853881 if you live out west. You can also contact us at the phone lines are busy, through social media. Email,fta booktv cspan. Org, ad finally you can make a comment on our facebook page. Facebook. Com booktv. Youre shia . Guest i do not accept any kind of sectarian designation at all. Again, thick for me, well, let me put it this way. When you study the religions of the world it becomes very difficult to take any religion all that seriously. Because what you recognize, what you discover very, very early on, is that all these religions are basically saying the exact same thing, theyre expressing the same aspirations, the same desires, the same answers, often using the same mythology, to do so, but really what you see are different symbols and metaphors expressing the exact same sentiment. Now, most of my colleagues would say, well, then, why bother choosing one of those . If theyre all saying the same thing, lets just ignore it all. And indeed, i think what would surprise a lot of viewers about the study of religion, and scholars of religion like myself, is that were all pretty much athiests. But a few of us are not. I am an exception. I am one of these scholars of religion who also takes faith very seriously. Most of my colleagues view faith the way that a biologist views a microbe. Its something to be studied from afar, from distance, not something taken personally by any means. I study the worlds religions and i am a person of faith. And i follow something that the buddha once said, which is that if you want to draw water, you do not dig six onefoot wells. You dig one sixfoot well. Islam is my sixfoot well. The path, the symbols, the metaphors i use to understand my place in the world and to experience the reality of transcendence. But what the buddha meant is that while your well may be separate, you are z drawing the water that every other well around you is drawing from. The water is the same. And thats something i never forget. My identity as a muslim comes primarily from my acceptance of islamic metaphors, islamic symbols, as a comfortable and viable way of expressing the inincomprehensible experience of the divine. But its just symbols and met fors. Theyre not more true, theyre not more right, theyre just more appealing. Thats all. Host how significant is the sunnishia split and what has it created . Guest you know, its a lot more significant now days than it has been in the past. Certainly as the main dividing line in islam, sunni, by the way, make up about 85 of the worlds muslim. The shia make around 15 . Very much historical shift like the catholicpros tess stand shift, having as much to do with political and social issues and economic issues. Shia tended to be far less economically successful than the sunni were. The sunni maintained the power and the structure of the first islamic empire. But nevertheless, in the same way that many christians would say, catholics, protestant, its all christianity, and christians would say, no. Catholics are right and protestants are wrong. Its an individual experience. I have seen muslims who say these sects are irrelevant, and i have seen muslims say if youre a sheave ya, youre shia, youre an unbeliever. But ultimately the reason that these sectarian differences have riz on the forfront over the last decade well, lets say, around 2001, around the time of theuci invasion of afghanistan is because there has been this deep political divide in the middle east. There has been, in other words, political benefit from inside and outside forces to stoke sectarian tensions for ones own nationalistic concern. You see this, of course, a lot with the cold war between iran and saudi arabia. Iran sees itself as the banner of aslea and muss lime and arabia, the banner of sunni and islam, and they have been fighting for far more than a decade and have deliberately stoked sectarian tensions for their own benefit. Now, in many cases those sectarian tensions have become no longer controllable, but in bahrain in lebanon, in syria, well, i would even even the United States has stoked sectarian tension in that region. There is this idea that you can control religious extremism, that you can use it to your advantage, and im hoping one day were going to learn that thats just simply not the case. That you cant control fanatics no matter how hard you try. Host in your book, beyond fundamental limp what was the arm title. Guest how to win a cosmic war. Why does it change . A mystery of the publishing word that authors are never privy to. It was a publishers decision to change the title. Host well in the current version of beyond fundamentalism. I confronting extremism you write a cosmic war is a religious wore, conflict in which god is believed to be directly engaged on one side over the. Others partitions the world into black and white, good and evil, us and them, in such a war theres no middle ground, everyone must choose a side, it is a simple equation if you are not us, you must be them, you are the enemy, and must be destroyed. Guest thats right. Ln and in fact, this notion of cosmic war is something that exists in all great religious traditions. In the west, of course, it can be traced right to the torah. This is precisely the kind of war that god demands of the israelites. A war in which the israelites themselves are not even really participants in. The israelites are essentially nothing more than the pawns whereby god destroys his enemies himself. When you look at the great wars of the hebrew bible. The destruction or any of these tribes this israelites destroyed, the bible makes it very clear, these enemy is did not fall to israel. Israels arms, israels weapons, israels might was irrelevant. It was god that destroyed the armies, and it wasnt so much the god of the jews, the god of the israelites destroyed this tribes if its that god destroyed the gods of these other tribes the very concept of divine war in the ancient mind has less to do with armies fighting each other thanked did with god than when gods destroying each. Others when israel destroyed the canyonites, the god of israel was destroying the god of cain, and to at the next level, when the babylonians destroyed the israelites it wasnt the two armies fighting each. Others it was the god of babylon destroying the god of the israelites, and the notion of nonmow kneism, the notion there is just one god and no other, is fairly late notion in the bible. It doesnt really show up until after the babylonian cab different in 586 captivity in 586bc. Abraham believed that his god was thetl highest god but there were other gods. Moses was not a mon ethist, he believed that his god was the highest god and by the way, moses god was nat abrahams god abrahams galled was called el, and moses god was called yawai. Its only after the babylonian cab different that el and yawai become a single god. El yawai as scholars sometimes refer to them, and the concept of mono theism is born. All of this is so say that notion of divine war, that we human beings are pawns in a cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil, between angels and demons, that this battle is not really taking place on earth, it is taking place in the heavens. Indeed its an eternal battle, one in which the forces of good will defeat the forces of evil. This is a phenomenon you fine playing itself out right now in a large part of the conflict around the world, not least of all in the middle east. Its the conflict that al qaeda is fighting. Its the conflict that isis is fighting. Its the conflict that a great many jewish extremists in israel are fighting. Its a conflict that many people in the u. S. Military themselves think they are fighting. A war between the forces of good and evil, not between the armies on earth. Thats a cosmic war, and the great fear about cosmic wars, as i say in the book, is that they are unwinnable. Host paul emails in from los gatos, california, how can islam ever be at peace with the western democracies when one goal of islam are for all the world to be ruled by islamic law. The koran says, quote, and fight with them until there is no persecution and religion should be only for allah. Guest that is not a goal of islam. This notion of udnq whole world has to be under islam, and that verse in the koran is a historically contextual verse. What is important to understand is for the latter half of the prophets life he was at war with the pagan tribes of arabia. Secondly, also important to understand that as a faith, that muslims believe that their message should be viewed by all people, all faiths believe this, but the notion that islam is a religion that is spread by the sword is actually historically incorrect. Indeed, for the first 150, 200 years of islam, not only was conversion not mandatory or forced upon people, it was discouraged because there were financial benefits of conversion that created a situationthe first islamic empire which ruled not 750a. D. , actually made it very difficult for people to convert to islam because you had to pay fewer taxes if you were a muslim, and they didnt want people to pay these taxes. That said, i think its important to understand that this notion of a conflict between islam and western democracy is a figment of the imagination. A third of the worlds muslim lives in democratic states. The largest, most populous Muslim Country in the world, indonesia, is a democracy. The second most populous Muslim Country, poise, is a democratic, bangladesh, malaysia, a democracy, indeed of the ten most populous countries in the world populous muslim countries in the world, five technically seven but two of them are not very good democracies, egypt cannot be called a democracy are democracies. So this notion that islam is somehow inherently antidemocratic is simply factually historically, empirically inaccurate. But one could make the argumentx that all religion, because they rely on a notion of absolutism, are antidemocratic. I mean, lets be honest. We live in a country in the United States, in which again, according to pew, about a third of americans, 100 million of us, fall under the designate of religious nationalists. Dominions, christians who believe in the United States as a christian nation, founded exclusively on christian values and principles and should be, as Rick Santorum has repeatedly said, as Mike Huckabee said on the campaign trail when he was running for president , should be predicated exclusively on biblical values and to paraphrase Mike Huckabee, the very constitution of this country needs to be changed so it aligns with biblical values. One can say that is an antidemocratic view because it is essentially prioritizing religion and one version of religion, one interpretation of religion, over all others and over civil society. So, in a sense, all religions are both antidemocratic and democratic, which goes back to what i have been saying for the last hour. Which is that religion is nothing more than interpretation. Religion is what a religious person says it is. Islam is what any muslim says it is. My version of islam is as valid as osama bin ladens version of islam. I would love to sit here and say that his version of islam is incorrect, and my version is right. Except thats not true. We are both right and were both wrong. You have the christian abortion bomber, his version of christianity is as correct as desmond tutus version of christianity. Theyre both right and theyre both wrong. So, if you have muslims who say, antithetical to islam, theyre right. If you have mulls hims who say democracy is absolutely compatible with islam, theyre right. So, stop saying islam is this or that. Christianity is this or that. There is no such thing as this or that when it comes to religion. Its always what an individual says it is. Host reza aslan in zealot, this the dedication for my wife, jessica jackley, and the entire jackley clan, whose love and acceptance have taught me more about jesus than all my years of research and study. Guest anybody who saw that famously uncomfortable fox interview knows my wife is a christian, as is my mother im the one who converted my mother to christianity and is a very devout christian, and my wife and i have twin boys that we joke are undeclared but who will grow up in all great religious traditions and will decide for themselves what they want to believe. The reason i made that dedication is because my wifes family comes from a very devout evangelical christian background, and for a lot of people, that seems incongruous. How could it be that this devout conservative evangelical family, my brotherinlaw is an evangelical pastor, can have in their family a muslim of all people, and while they will freely admit when they discovered their daughter was dating and about to marry a muslim man, they were confused. Theyd never met a muslim before. My motherinlaw, humorously says, the only thing she knew about islam is what sean hannity told her, and yet within five minutes of meeting me all of that went aint away and what they displayed towards me was a love and acceptance and compassion that is the best expression of christianity. Not the expression of christianity that we so often wee from our politicians, a religion of exclusion, a religion that is all about who is not part of us, who does not receive salvation, but the christianity that is about inclusion, about love and acceptance, and they taught me, they really taught me, what true christianity is about, and i am forever grateful for it. I am as much a part of their family as anyone else. We have an amazing relationship, and i have learn as much from them as theyve learned from me. Host we have two hours left in our program today on booktv. Rosa aslan is our back. Now its your turn to talk to him. Michael, youre up. Caller thank you tremendously. Dr. Aslan, i want to apologize sincerely on behalf of us christians forot what and other islamics have heard too often in the United States. Allah i a teefour teefour if begun. Down here. Lets be honest. Its protestant radio. We dont get the Television Network host cue give us your religious background and are you a person of faith today . Caller dont anybody call me please dont anybody call me a conservative. Im conservative on moral andth that values, especially big hollywood, big nashville, big marble and dc comics. Jobs, i mean, they wanted host we are going to leave it there. We will see if we have any comments later. Guest a perfect expression of what ive been saying all along about religion being a matter of identity, not necessarily a matter of faith and practice. You can be an extreme liberal and evangelical christian, like my friend, jim wallace says, a creator of soldiers are you can be an extreme conservative evangelicals christian. In other words, you may have the same beliefs and practices, but they can be expressed in diametrically opposite ways. The evidence now will serve. Correct cap and those individuals think for themselves the problem for me i have been saying earlier that we should not confuse religion with faith. Religion is enough faith in it y definition impossible for the human mind to comprehend. God is, if thinking be, god is, if anything, to understand what causes thisgod e express what god is. What is religion . The language that helps us express it. Thats it. Its just a language of symbols and metaphors that give us the opportunity to express to ourselves and to likeminded people the experience of faith. The danger comes when people confuse religion with faith. When they think that religion is the destination, not the path to a test nation. When they think that destination. When they think that religion is the ends, not the means to an end. And i think that if we did a better job, people of faith, of all faiths, in recognizing that my particular religion is just a unique way of expressing similar sentiment as other people of religion, we would have far greater peace, far greater understanding than we do now. Unfortunately, most religious people be they jewish or husband limb or christian or buddhist or hindu or whatever most religious people tend to believe this their religion, not the in what their religion tells them to believe. In other words, your tate is not in god your faith is not in god, but in your religion. And that, i think, is a tragic, tragic mistake. Host professor aslan, are your books available in your home country of iran . Are they available in israel or some of the more volatile arab countries . Guest my books, especially no god but god, have been translated into hebrew and are quite popular in israel. And in arabic theres an err due version of coming. Zealot will be available in the next year, it takes a while to do the translation. We, of course, have very strict sanction laws against iran. The Treasury Department makes it very difficult to translate and sell english material in farsi to an iranian audience, and, of course, iran makes it very difficult for material like this to be spread out. So what i have done is i have paid for my own persian translations of my books, and if you are not in iran, you can go to amazon and buy them this persian, but if you are in iran, you can just simply go to my web site, rezaaslan. Com, and download a free version in farsi of my books. No god but god is available right now. The persian translation of zealot is finished, and were in the process of putting it online so that any farsi speaker anywhere in the world can have free access to it. Host because of your writing, have there been any fatwas against you [laughter] be them muslim, christian or jewish . Guest sure. But, listen, as i like to say, you know, fatwas are a dime a dozen, you know . I can get you give me an hour, ill get or you a fatwa on any subject you want. A fatwa which is, you know, has achieved almost supernatural dimensions in the United States because of the violence thats taking place and perhaps the Salman Rushdie affair, the fatwa is nothing more than a juristic opinion by a must havety, a scholar who has achieved a certain number of years in training. Its literally an opinion. Its not a papal bowl, there is no sort of infallibility to it. And, indeed, whats really fascinating about fatwas is that no fatwa can overcome another fatwa. So, in other words, if you have two imams in this world and one issues a fatwa saying coke is evil, drink pepsi, and the other issues a fatwa saying pepsi is evil, drink coke, there is no mechanism to decide which is correct. You as a muslim get to just simply decide if you like this i ham, you follow his imam, you follow his fatwas. If you dont, you follow the other guys fatwas. And, indeed, most muslims dont have a single imam that they follow, they just follow whatever fatwas they like. So theyll follow imam a when it comes to, say, fatwas about marriage or purity, theyll follow imam b when it comes to fatwas about, say, you know, living in a certain way or lets say foreign issues. Thats the thing about islam is that, in a sense, ironically speaking, you know, because of the previous caller it is a quintessentially democratic religion in that its really up to you who you want to follow. Host john is calling in from washington. John, youre on booktv. Caller yes. My question is, is that do you see the future of religions continuing to diversify and grow in number, or do you see a future where religions coalesce and maybe become like one unified religion . Guest what a fantastic question. And this is something that im deeply interested in when i write about religious traditions, because i do believe that you can sort of move forward in the timeline, the history and make certain predictions. And i think that this is going to sound weird, but both of your sort of two possibilities of religion are becoming true. One, religion is becoming far more individualistic. Its becoming fractured into greater sects and schisms. Primarily this has to do with the internet. I mean, sociologists refer to this process thats taking place over the last decade as materialism. Thats as postmaterialism. Thats just a fancy way of saying the very definition of community is altering right before our eyes. Think about it this way for all of Human History, i mean, ever since we were, you know, neanderthals living in caves, for all of Human History the definition of community was the people around you. Finish the people in your cave. The people in your tribe. The people in your village. The people in your city. The people in your country. The people in your nation. Its geographically defined what it means to be in a community. In the last decade, that definition has been shattered by the internet. Because now community is no longer geographically constrained. Indeed, a kid in indonesia, lets say a christian kid this indonesia may have more in common with a muslim kid in los angeles because they share the same love of music, love of movies, they share the same interests, they share the same values than either of those kids may have this champion with their own in common with their own sort of geographicallydefined communities. This is what we mean by postmaterialism. In other words, its no longer safety or sustenance or shelter that defines a community, its these postmaterialist values. And religion has been utterly shattered, the very definition has been utterly shattered by these new community formations which is why were seeing more sort of religious sects popping up online. People dont meet in actual churches, they meet in chat rooms. So thats one future of religion. The other future of religion, however, is one in which science and religion are starting to become closer and closer to each other. Now, this drives both religious and scientific people mad when i say this, but the truth of the matter is that the more science begins to redefine the nature of reality, the more it starts to use religious language to do so. Certainly mystical language to do so. The idea that all matter is eternal, that it it has always existed and will always exist. That what makes me what i am is the same thing that makes this table what it is. These are mystical religious ideas that have been around for thousands of years. So i think that if we look at these two trends and move into the future, we can start making some very interesting predictions about what religion will look like a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now. What i can tell you with some confidence is that religion is not going to go away. Weve been talking about the death of god for about a hundred years now. At the dawn of the 20th century, onehalf of the worlds population defined itself as either christian, muslim, jewish, hindu or buddhist. 100 years of secularism, of scientific advancement, of Economic Development and that number is now twothirds. It seems that people are becoming more religious, not less religious. And i dont think that theres a reason why this trend is going to reverse anytime soon. Host mary, atlanta. Good afternoon. Please go ahead. Caller hey, reza. I just have to say i admire any person who can put a sentence together that has fatwa and papal bowl at the same time. Guest i appreciate that. [laughter] caller brilliant. Brilliant. Are you familiar with richard [inaudible] and his center for action [inaudible] guest ive heard of it, yes, i have. Caller okay. The reason i ask is hes a type of catholic, hes a francis can monk, and his outreach im not, im palestinian, im episcopalian, so im not a catholic, but he preaches the way that the pope, the new pope does. Its very inclusive. And, basically, where i want to get this is not an ad for him, im sorry, but to come up with everything that religion comes down to. I like where you went with symbols and metaphors. Guest yeah. Caller but im looking for actionable consequences of those, those metaphors, and im not looking for war. Im palestinian, need no more of that. Im looking for, well, just take jesus as one, you know . Healing, preaching, feeding, basically taking care of our guest yeah. Caller our regular sisters and brothers of all different colors and faiths. I guess what im trying to say is i love where your brain is. It is astounding. Is there an actionable guest yeah. Host all right, mary. Thank you very much. Guest very good question, mary, thank you. Before i answer that question, let me just talk a little bit about my love for pope francis. Everybody loves pope francis for a whole host of reasons, but people what they dont realize is that pope francis is the very first jesuit pope. Which if you understand anything about catholic history and anything about the jesuits, you understand what a remarkable statement that is, how earth shattering it is to have a jesuit pope finally at the vatican and as a proud product of a jesuit education. In fact, it was the jesuits who first taught me about religion, it was a the jesuits who first taught me about the historical jesus. I couldnt be prouder or happier to have pope francis in the papacy right now. Because at the heart of the jesuit ideal is the preferential option for the poor. It is the notion that jesus message is about the poor and for the poor and that the only way to really live up to jesus commandment is to also have a commitment to the poor, to the dispossessed, to the marginalized. And pope francis, i think, has learned a valuable lesson from his predecessor, pope benedict, which is that, you know, the Catholic Church is two things. Its a bureaucracy and a church, and you cant really reform the bureaucracy. Pope benedict realized this. But you can reform the church. And the way to do so is to just simply live out the commandments of jesus and hope everyone else follows, and thats what pope francis has done. And i am so, so proud to be a product of a jesuit education and someone who really supports this pope and what hes been doing. So thats my two cents on the pope. This notion of sort of the thing that religions have in common is, of course, incredibly important. At the heart of it is this idea that is found in all religious traditions and which is most familiar to jews and christians as do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule exists in every religious traditions in the world. Religions that go far back before judaism, the cold of ham rabbi, the oldest, most ancient code of ethics we have has the golden rule in it. This idea that there is a way of treating other people regardless of their race or ethnicity or their religion, their nationality. And its simply how you yourself want to be treated seems so basic. But at the heart of the it is this notion of it is this notion of compassion, that we are to have compassion for one another, that we are not to focus on our differences, but the things that we have in common. Now, i will be the first to admit that this is very difficult to do. Its difficult for the reasons that i mentioned before, because people confuse religion for faith, and so they focus on their religion that divides us rather than the faith that unites us. But also because we tend to focus on something that i call interfaith dialogue. That if we can all come together, if a jew and a christian and a muslim can come together and talk to one another about their religions, that itll create a greater bond. Its a beautiful idea, and im not by any means dismissing it. Its a great thing, and it should happen. But its not enough. Interfaith dialogue is not the end all and be all. And so the advice that i have for all those great churches and synagogues and mosques who want to have greater connection, greater connectivity and cooperation with people of other faith, its not enough to come together to talk about the things that unite you. What you need is interfaith action. I am a great supporter of a wonderful American Organization called Interfaith Youth corps founded by a friend of mine out of chicago. The Interfaith Youth corp. Has a very simple message. Rather than getting young people of different religions to sit in a room and talk about the things that unite and divide them, instead, they go out onto the streets, and they clean the streets. They help build hospitals, they feed the poor and the needy, they clothe those who are naked. In other words, they put their shared values into action because the one thing that we all have in common regardless of what religion we are is that we all have the same ideals, we have the same morals, we have the same values at the foundation of all these religions. It is care for those who cannot care for themselves. So you want greater connection, greater peace, greater pluralism between religious traditions . Stop talking about the things that you have in common and go put those things in action. Host david, rochester, new york. Please go ahead with your question or comment for reza aslan. Caller yes, dr. Aslan, you mentioned earlier in this program [laughter] its been so long, i forgot the zero as try januaryism. And i believe that was the religion of persia before it became iran. And what i was wondering is are there any vestiges left in, of this religion in present day iran or any place else, or is it a completely dead religion . Thank you. Guest what a fantastic question. And i love it when people ask me about sor rah as try januaryism because it is one of my favorite religions and probably, i would say, the most important religion in the history of religions. And i am not saying that lightly. The prophet lived probably around 1100 b. C. , thats our best guess. It was the first monothe wristic religion. It was not the first monotheist. The first was actually the great egyptian pharoah who believed that the ahten was the only god, that all other gods were fall gods. That religion did not last very long, but sor rah theus that was the first of what we refer to as the are revealed rough fetes. In other words, an individual who claimed to be receiving a direct message from god. Not abraham, not moses. Thousand, whats fashion now, whats fascinating about this message is that it begins with this statement that there is only one god. Not that there is a high god and there are other gods that are lower than god which is what the sort of revailing sentiment was in mess prevailing sentiment was in mesopotamia and the near east, but that there is just one god, the lord mazda, is what he called his god. That all the other socalled gods were not gods. In fact, he designated them as something that had never been set before. He said that they were what he referred to in our modern parlance as angels and demons. Thats right. He invented the very concept of angels and demons. That wasnt the only thing that he invented. He invented the concept of heaven and hell. Before this time really there was a notion of the after life, but the after life was just a mirror of the life in present. If you were a warrior in this life, you died, and you were a warrior in the after life. If you were a slave in this life, you died, and you were a slave in the after life. Certificate theus that was the first prophet to argue that what your role was in the after life had nothing to do with your position in this life, but it had to do with your moral choices. He started this phrase called good thoughts, good words, good deeds. If you accumulated enough good thoughts, good words, good deeds in this life, well, then you went to a good after life, heaven. If you did not, you went to a wad after life, hell. A bad after life, hell. He had such a deep impact on what we now know as religion because the first great iranian empire of cyrus the great was a astrian empire, and those who remember your ancient history, it was cyrus the great who liberated the jews, sent them back to israel to rebuild their temple, and, indeed, they thank cyrus the great in the hebrew bible by naming him messiah. Judaism was deeply influenced by this ideology, and, indeed, what we know as christianity can in many ways be understood as a marriage of zoraastrianism and judaism. It is not a dead religion, but it is a dying religion. There are, i would say, maybe 250,000 left in the world. Its a dying religion because its a religion that you cant convert to, and any religion that you cant convert to eventually dies out. A shame, because it is an important and historic religious tradition. Host bev corpswomen tweets in to you, why do religions seem to consistently degrade and persecute well . Guest because they are patriarchal institutionings. Religions are man made, literally. All religions are manmade. And so when it comes time to interpret a religion, its going to be interpreted in ways that benefit men. And, again, this is true of all religious traditions. Host and, in fact, you write in no god but god, the origins evolution, you write the fact is that for 14 century ies quranic and because each one inevitably brings to the quran his own ideology and his own preconceived notions. It should not be surprising to learn that certain verses have most often been read in their most misogynyst interpretation. Guest and, again, i would say thats true of all religions. Host debbie, albuquerque. Good afternoon to you. Caller hi, how you doing . Ive been waiting to talk to you. I find what youre talking about absolutely fascinating. I do take exception, youre a sociology major and theology, then why did you gloss over talking about jihadists . Because i see, i heard that you neglected to mention that one of the very first attacks was on mecca on november 20, 1979, when they first mecca for two weeks. You didnt mention that at all. And that was really the very first strike that they took against the United States was like we became the infidels from that point on. I mean, yeah, we were focused with them taking the hostages in tehran, and it sort of got glossed over and didnt make the news, but you didnt mention anything about that. And im just curious why. If youre because im also a sociology major, and i know about it. So im just sort of curious why you made reference to that, oh, in the last decade this has been an uprising when thats truly incorrect if you actually do know history. It started in 79 in mecca, and ill take my response off the air. Thank you. Host and if you would also include where did jihaddism come from. Guest sure. Well, first of all, what i said is the sectarian conflict between sunni and shia has been exacerbated over the last decade, not jihaddism. Jihaddism is a very specific and very new phenomenon. Jared buckman at west point says that it probably can be traced to about 2000. I would go a little bit further. I would say that it can probably be traced to about 1989 and the soviet invasion of afghanistan. Jihaddism is a transnational movement. In other words, its a movement of radical muslims who with believe that the very concept of the nationstate is anathema to islam. They want to reconstitute the world as a single caliphate under their control. The reason i go through this important terminology is that we tend to conflate jihadist and islamist as though theyre the same thing when in reality they are opposite things. Islamism is a nationalistic ideology. It is a political philosophy predicated on the creation of an islamic state. Islamists are not globalists, in other words. They have a distinctly geographically, nationalistically defined objective. Jihadists do not. Jihadists want to get rid of all borders, all boundaries and to reconstitute the world under their command. Alqaeda is a Jihadist Organization. Isis is a Jihadist Organization. The Muslim Brotherhood is an islamist organization. Hamas is an islamist organization. Very important that we get these terms right because they require vastly different responses. And islamist organizations and a nationalist organization wants something concrete, wants something measurable. And so, therefore, whether they can have what they want or not, theres still room for negotiation, room for discussion. A Jihadist Organization is fighting a cosmic war, as i said earlier. They want nothing. Alqaeda cannot be negotiated with. Isis cannot be negotiated with because what they want is impossible to achieve in this world. And so they require a completely different response. Now, i would say that, fortunately, this administration has been much better at understanding the difference between the two organizations, but the media has not. The media conflates these words all the time. I was watching meet the press this morning, and isis was repeatedly referred to as an islamist organization. That is factually incorrect. And so terms matter when what is at stake is our national security. Host from no god but god, the biggest obstacles in the path to creating a genuine islamic democracy are not only the traditionalist ulama or jihaddist terrorists, but perhaps, more destructively, those in the west who stubbornly refuse to recognize that democracy if its to be viable and enduring can never be important. Guest the lesson of the war on terror, i would say. Host got an email here. Inlaws, yes, we are his biggest fans. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are honored and blessed to have rez is saw as reza is our family. We are so touched by your comments and very proud to call you ours. End of commercial for reza aslan. Guest i love you, guys. Host jim in mercer island, washington. Jim, qd. Others did not. And the second one, why did the gentiles find this uses movement and a new religion so appealing . The jews did not. The gentiles to it. Why . I will hang up and listen off the air. Youre right. There were many, many masais before and after jesus. Many of them far more popular 2,000 years later they forgot about one. It had to do with jesus himself. In mr. Meri individual. His social teachings work, i think, what really separates him from his fellow messiahs, this teaching about the kingdom of god, a new world order in which those on the top and those on the bottom would change places. The poor and rich with a strange places. The first shall be last, the last shall be first. This was extraordinary. People did not talk like this. A way absolutely no that after jesus death and was not so much of the things that he did with the things that he said and that were passed from community to community, from florida follower whose teachings survived his death in other words. But it put it in the simplest way. The reason why jesus is still called messiah where others were not has less to do with anything he himself did and it does with what his followers said about him. In light of the experience the disciples had to deal with the fundamental problem which is, according to everything she did as an observer said above the role and function of the messiah, jesus was not the messiah. He did not do anything. Roland function of the messiah, jesus was not the messiah. He didnt do anything the messiah was supposed to do. He didnt recreate the kingdom of david. He didnt liberate the jews from foreign occupation. Confronted with the fact that by the definition of messiah, jesus wasnt the messiah. The disciples to change the definition. They made the messiah son enough, something spiritual in the something celestial, someone who performs this function not in this world, but the next world. Someone whose kingdom is an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom. As you can imagine for a great many jews who are familiar with macy on expectations, this didnt work for them. They simply did accept this new definition of messiah. The more the definitions right into the roman empire come into the diaz prayer, the more nonjews sounded appealing. The son of god would have been unusual was not that unusual is not that weird of a notion. So very, very soon after jesus death, within two or three generations, the nonjewish converts far outweighed the nonjewish ones and christianity began to divorce his cell from its jewish parent and becomes sent a new