Search - List of Books by Reza Aslan

Currently

Other publications

• 'The Struggle for Islam's Soul', essay in With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty, Will Marshall, ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006
• 'From Here to Mullahcracy', essay in My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices, Lila Azam Zanganeh, ed. Beacon Press, 2006

• "I believe we are living in the time of the Islamic reformation. In fact, I think we are living in the twilight of that reformation. For me, the word reform is defined by its inevitability. This process cannot be stopped; it can be slowed down for a time but reform is inevitable. It's an historic reformation taking place within Islam ... it's adapting itself to the realities of the world around it. I think we'll see the same process we saw in the Christian reformation from doctrinal absolutism to doctrinal relativism; toward a truly indigenous Islamic enlightenment. And it's up to us as Muslims in the US to give voice to that for our brothers and sisters who don't have the voice or the same ability to speak out as we do." Interview: Reza Aslan, Author "No god but God"
• "It is pluralism...the peaceful coexistence and legal equality between different ethnic, religious or political ideologies...that defines democracy, not secularism." NPQ
• "The veil is seen as a symbol of Islam but like all symbols, it's meaningless unless interpreted. The veil is as much a symbol of oppression of women as it is an expression of Muslim femininity. The strangeness of this is that if you go to a country where the veil is either mandatory or there is a lot of pressure to wear it, you'll find the vast majority of women are against it. But, if you go to a country like Turkey where the veil is outlawed in much of the public realm ... in the latest polls, 70 percent of the Muslim women want to remove that law."
• "Iraq should look to Israel for a model that combines democracy and religious belief." Reza Aslan - Articles - PM June '05
• "Despite the apartheid state that has resulted from over half a century of bloody territorial conflicts with its neighboring Palestinian territories, few would deny that the state of Israel is a democracy. At the same time, Israel is a country founded upon an exclusivist Jewish moral framework, which offers all the world's Jews ... regardless of their nationality ... immediate citizenship, providing them with a host of benefits and privileges over its non-Jewish citizens. It is a country in which the Orthodox rabbinical courts have jurisdiction over all matters relating to Judaism (including who is a Jew); where religious schools (yeshivas) are subsidized by the state, and marriages are religious, rather than civil affairs (meaning no official will marry a Jew to a non-Jew); and the government is dominated by religious parties such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas, the Yahadut Hatorah, and of course the ruling Likud."
• "If we don't figure out a way to strip these conflicts of their religious connotations, then we will never figure out a way to put an end to them. Because as long as these remain cosmic conflicts, they will go on for eternity."
• "A lot of scholars, myself included, believe the future of Islam, especially Islamic democracy, rests in the Shia world. It’s Iran and Iraq where the most exciting experiments are being carried out."

• The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (Random House, 2005)
• How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror (Random House, 2009)
• Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, ed. (W. W. Norton / Words Without Borders, 2010)
• Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization (Random House, 2010) ISBN 978-0-8129-7830-8

Video and audio

• Reza Aslan is a keynote speaker in the upcoming conference December 4—6, 2009 Los Angeles, USC CA
• Reza Aslan interviewed by Bree Walker March 30, 2008
• Reza Aslan talks about The Future of U.S./Iran Relations (video)
• Reza Aslan in Conversation with Jack Miles (video)
• Reza Aslan vs. Sam Harris Debate
• Video debates featuring Aslan on Bloggingheads.tv
• Raza's talk, "How to Get Out of the Cosmic War in the Middle East."
• Reza talks to Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks.