No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam by Reza Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Riding the Tiger

Various studies of religion over recent decades show a remarkably similar pattern of development that seems to be universal. The start of religious movement is most often sociological and economic. The deficiencies of the prevailing conditions are typically expressed in syncretistic religious terms borrowed from whatever spiritual traditions are available. These social/spiritual insights are progressively codified and formalised as doctrine with only an increasingly vague connection to the original motivating social conditions. As a religious establishment forms to ‘protect’ emerging doctrine, this establishment takes responsibility for interpreting the meaning of religious practice in new circumstances. It is not unusual at this point that differences in interpretation cause schisms among adherents, leading to competing sects.

Aslan’s story is of Islam, but its main points are exactly these and are equally applicable to Christianity. Muhammad, for example, used precisely the same strategy as St. Paul in creating a ‘super-tribe’ of equal members open to all by simple affirmation of a fundamental tenet. Just as with the medieval papacy in which every doctrinal decision was politically motivated, so in Islam the collection of Hadiths, interpretations of Muslim doctrine, were equally political and used to further political aims by leading Muslims. And just as in Christianity, the initial religious thrust in Islam toward social justice and mutual regard succumbed quickly and persistently to the interests of the religious establishment in maintaining its position of power.

Islam is syncretistic, just as is Christianity, and both from similar sources. Islam assimilated its strict monotheism and the idea of prophecy from Judaism, much of its ritual from the pagan cults of Arabia, and its cosmology from ancient Zoroastrianism. But arguably, its most important acquisition was the Christian notion of faith, and the related compulsion to proselytisation. Neither of these was present anywhere among the tribal religions of the Arabian peninsula nor among the ancient religions of Mesopotamia and Persia. They were innovations strictly from Christian sources and, as with Christianity, formed the foundation for a doctrinal religion with global ambitions.

“Religion, it must be understood, is not faith,” says Aslan. He goes on to point out an essential aspect of this fact: “With the exception of a few remarkable men and women, no Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian, or Muslim of this time would have considered his or her religion to be rooted in the personal confessional experiences of individuals. Quite the contrary. Your religion was your ethnicity, your culture, and your social identity.” Religion, in other words, was a fact of human existence, not a set of beliefs about what other people had perceived as divine revelation. And so it has remained ‘with the exception of a few remarkable men and women’ throughout history. Faith is the basis of a new kind of tribalism which is grounded not on genetics or shared cultural background but on the verbal affirmation of an inner conviction.

But Aslan does not develop the implication of his own observation. Religions of faith are inherently expansive, and, therefore, combative, regardless of their doctrinal content. Both Islam and Christianity have the intention of world-wide conversion. They both have a need to justify themselves as bearers and guardians of truth and to overcome others who claim such truth. The paradox of a Christianity which claims its truth as universal divine love yet feels justified in committing any human horror to prove it, is only rivalled by the paradox of Islam which recognises the gift of human life as divine and is willing to kill in order to ensure others share that recognition. Such is the nature of faith and its doctrines, no matter what such doctrines are. Faith itself, not any particular belief, is the key to understanding these religions of faith.

Doctrinal faith is also inherently prone to fragmentation. That is to say, it promotes conflict, often intense, where none had previously existed. Claims to orthodoxy, correct beliefs, are as diverse in Islam as they are in Christianity. So, consequently, are the mutual anathemas that are delivered most vehemently against those who are closest but not identical in matters of doctrine. Such fragmentation is not promoted or maintained by the rank and file believer who typically has no idea of the content or complexity of doctrinal pronouncements. Rather, it is the result of religious leaders’ political ambitions justified on the basis of alternative interpretations of foundational texts. Put rather more simply: doctrinal religion is necessarily ideological and essentially divisive.

It might be argued that all religion is a political activity in the sense that one of its essential functions is to establish the distinction ‘them’ and ‘us’. But with the doctrinal religions of Christianity and Islam this ethnic distinction, which can be merely descriptive, is transformed into a political judgement that leads to alienation and hatred. Small-scale tribal tension becomes global competition. Possibilities for negotiation among conflicting parties are eliminated by opposing claims to absolute truth. In fact the politics of doctrinal truth tends toward the elimination of all other politics as is clear in such apparently different cultures as that of Afghanistan and Alabama, or of Tehran and Washington D.C.

If Aslan’s analysis is broadly correct, and I think it is, there seems to be an almost instinctive turn to religion in order to justify radical social action. His narrative of Muhammad’s striving against the inequities of contemporary life in Mecca, for example, is parallel to that of St. Paul in his struggle against the inequities of the Roman Empire. In addition, in order to establish their divine credentials for questioning the existing order of things, both men attacked those religious practices closest to them - Paul his native Judaism, and Muhammad his native veneration of the Ka’ba. Similar narratives could easily be developed for Hinduism and Buddhism among other religious movements

Having fulfilled its function in mobilising support for such social change, however, religion quickly develops its own self-serving agenda. The politics of religion then become conservative and, when required, oppressive in order to further its own claims to power. Doctrinal religions based on texts (and therefore interpretations) are most prone to such political cooptation. Whatever spiritual ‘luminosity’ might be present in such texts is inevitably overcome by political expediency. The social objectives riding the tiger of doctrinal religion always winds up inside.

Postscript: For more on doctrinal religion and its alternatives, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

View all my reviews