The Agonist: Exclusive Interview with Author Reza Aslan
Sean-Paul Kelley | San Antonio | April 29

The Agonist - Earlier this week I had the distinct pleasure to interview Reza Aslan, author of "No god but God." Below you will find the full transcript of our interview, including several reader submitted questions.

My first question stems from, I read several months ago, The Persian Puzzle, by Kenneth Pollack and also had conversations with some of my other Iranian friends about the Shi'a Martyrdom complex and I've seen some of this in my travels in Azerbaijan but I've not yet been able to travel in Iran. I was wondering if you could just elaborate on that. I know you go into some detail about it origins, if you might talk about the consequences of how the martyrdom complex manifests itself in Iranian politics?

Another interview of Aslan can be found here.

Right, well, I don't know if I would use the term "martyrdom complex," I think that is very harsh and derogatory way of putting. But in reality this experience of martyrdom, what we are referring to, is the self-conscious sacrifice of one's-self for a higher cause, for justice on Earth. This is something, basically what Shi'ism was founded upon. This goes back to the 7th century and the original split between what we now refer to as the Shi'a sect and the Orthodox Sunni majority sect. This was a political argument between who should succeed the prophet Muhammad as his Caliph. Should it be Abu Bakr or should it be Muhammad's nephew and son-in-law, Ali. And that political argument really severed the community into two factions. It wasn't until 50 years later or so when Hussein who was the scion of the family of the Prophet and represented the aspirations of the Shi'a to regain political control from Sunni dominated Umayyad Empire. That this revolt became this horrific massacre at the city of Karbala (in present day Iraq, eds) in which Hussein and his followers, men, women and children were almost to the last person killed by the Sunni forces of the Caliph Yazid. That experience was such a horrific blow to, not just the political aspirations of the Shi'a but also to their identity as to what it was that made them different from the Sunni majority that it has become, in essence, the foundation of Shi'ism as a religious and political ideology. It is in essence the Garden of Eden for the Shi'a. It is the Crucifixion of Jesus, for the Shi'a, that moment in which their faith became concretized around a paradigm of what it meant to be a Shi'a. And that paradigm was given by Hussein: a righteous believer who against all odds stands up for the values and the justice of one's fate, against enormous odds even to the point of self-sacrifice. That, I think is engrained in the Shi'a consciousness and it certainly is, as a predominantly Shi'a state, it is engrained within the national consciousness of Iran, very much like a lot of Protestant ideology are engrained within the nationalist consciousness of America.

One of the very interesting things that I found about your book, one of the most interesting comments was where you talked about women involving themselves in Quranic exegesis.

Yup.

On the flip side of that was, you didn't give a lot of names, there weren't any specific examples of women involved in this. I actually posted that on The Agonist and it elicited a comment from one person who is obviously a devout, and traditional Sunni. And he/she wrote: "what you are seeing is a woman's movement that is trying to malign 1400 years of Fiqh and rock solid Ijma on Shar'ia principles". I was wondering if you could address that for us?

I agree wholeheartedly and so much the better. That is precisely what the women's movement is trying to do. If you want to call it maligning or call it reinterpreting or whether you want to call it, actually, fixing, in essence modernizing Islam. That is precisely what this person is referring to in 1400 years of fixed Shar'ia. Now, that said, I would take offense at this notion that Quranic law, Islamic faith, or Islamic values or Islamic beliefs have been fixed for 1400 years. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact of the matter is, that Islam, like all religions has been in a constant state of evolution for 1400 years. It has been constantly adapting to the spiritual, the cultural, the political, the social realities and the landscape in which it finds itself, which is why there is such a wide diversity of belief and practices within the Muslim world. If a religion doesn't evolve, if a religion doesn't adapt itself, that religion dies. There is no way around it. The very fact that Islam is still alive; the very fact that it is a faith of 1.2 billion people on Earth is testimony to the fact that this is a faith in constant evolution.

Now what I think the issue that this person is trying to say is that these women are somehow going against the grain of traditional Quranic exegesis, that somehow they are taking what was the sole prerogative of a large group of men, which is still not true, there were many very famous and powerful women throughout Islamic history who were known as great holders of tradition and interpreters of the Quran. But for the most part, Quranic exegesis has been dominated by men. And by very closed groups of men within certain law schools. That is changing and that is a good thing. That is changing now because there are women throughout the Middle East and whether than giving you particular names, I mean, I can certainly give you the names of women like Amina Wadoud or Leila Ahkmed or Fatima Vernasi. These are very famous pillars of this new kind of Islamic feminism that attempts to go back to the text and to reinterpret and reengage it from a gender neutral perspective, something that the text very easily lends itself to. But rather than say that, I think it is more important to look at the movements that are taking place, for instance, look at Iran, or Pakistan or Egypt, these huge underground movements of women who are trying to in essence to create a distinctly Islamic vision of what feminism truly is. And it has taken off in a wide variety of interpretations.

You know, I found that to be, I mean, your comment about, I posted on this one as well, this is just an aside, your comment on Democracy's need to be organic, autochthonous, it needs to arise in the country and from the values and institutions and traditions of the country to be very, astute, and

Incredibly self-evident.

And yes, common-sensical, self-evident, it's like, hello? You know, D'oh! Homer Simpson moment, is the world listening, paying attention to the obvious? Very interesting that it is not, however, common knowledge.

One thing that I wanted you to elaborate on, you mentioned three very important words towards the end of your book: Shura, Ijma and Bay'ah. Can you briefly sum them up?

Sure, I bring that up because there is this tendency in the West, in some of the highest academic circles, you find this tendency, to consider Islam, and Islamic values, traditions and Islamic history as being completely opposed to what we would consider to be the principles of Democracy.

Agreed.

Which is outrageous for a number of reasons, most clearly because it is in direct defiance to Islamic history. Islam has from the very beginning, from the moment of the first revelation that came out of the Prophet Muhammad's mouth, indeed even before that, had in place the ideologies of egalitarianism and human rights and popular sanction of governing bodies and so one of those issues that I bring up is for instance: here are three of them.

The first is the notion of Shura, which is a consultative assembly. This is a pre-Islamic ancient Arabian tribal tradition in which all of the leaders of a community, the elders, the leaders, the warriors, the people who make the decision gather together in order to decide what is best for the tribe. More specifically to decide which one of them, among equals, is going to become in essence the executive of the tribe, so again the executive also rules, is compliant to the will of this entire consultative community.  That is clearly the foundation of what we would now refer to as a parliament. The parallels don't even need to be stated.

Ijma is the notion of consensus. And that is the idea when a new situation arises for the community, this is deeply ingrained Islamic law and tradition, that the community come together in consensus decide which is the best route to take. This notion of consensus has meant either the consensus of elite group or the consensus of the entire community. In other words true democracy or like what we have, a republic.

Let me pause right there Reza. You bring up something very interesting. I don't know if you are familiar with Japanese culture at all.

Not much, no.

I've lived in Asia and studied East Asian societies at length and one of the very interesting things about Asian democracies is that they are very much centered on consensus. And I am not talking about majority rules. I'm talking about, the consensus, meaning the body politic; the vast majority of the body politic comes to an agreement itself. And then moves forward in that sense. And it is democratic, but it is very different from us, because we are fifty plus one.

(Laughs)

And, so my question to you is, would this idea of Ijma be more similar to an East Asian definition of consensus or would it be more towards a Western definition of fifty plus one?

Yeah, I think that. It sounds as though it would probably be more in line with what you are referring to in this East Asian vision of it, but I also think that its going to be unique in the sense that, in Islam, it is a Western religion. It's a Western thing, you are going to see a lot of what we would consider, "Western Ideals," not just in governance but in society that are going to be injected within an Islamic democracy and within an Islamic state. So in some ways it seems to me that it's going to straddle these two great visions.

And then Bay'ah, of course is pre-Islamic vision of oath giving when that Shura comes together and decides who is going to be first among them, not best among them, but first among them. They pledge allegiance to what we would call a tribal shayk. Then that shayk goes to the community and ever member of the community pledges their allegiance to him as well. Not in an individual sense, but more in a family sense. You have a much larger sense of communalism in these cultures than a sense of individualism. That tradition was not only continued by the Prophet Muhammad but it's how the first four Caliphs were chosen through this sense of pledging an oath of allegiance and is still very much a part of the history of Muslim political thought. So, I guess, what I am trying to do when I bring these things up is talk about the fact that these are not foreign ideas to Islam. They do not need to be adopted wholesale from the West as was attempted to do during the colonial experience. These are issues which are engrained within the Muslim consciousness and considering the vast, vast majority already accept these are the principles of democracy, are already welcoming the notion of popular sovereignty, separation of powers and the rule of law and constitutionalism and are indeed desperate for it. There is no reason to think that democracy is not going to take hold in an "Islamic context." Quite the opposite. In fact the only way it is going to take hold in the region, is that it is in an Islamic context. That it is based on an Islamic moral framework.

This is a question a reader sent to me. Because we do have at The Agonist a lot of readers who are just really, really curious about their world, that's part of the reason they come to The Agonist, is that we give them, "the world."

Can you recommend one book, relatively unbiased, that is a short history of Islam, other than your book?

If you are looking for specifically a history of Islam, in other words, not a book about religion, culture and theological conflicts which is what my book is all about, purely a history of Islam I would recommend Karen Armstrong's short Islam, a brief History.

Another question one of our readers sent in was: do you read any of the Persian blogs, and if so, what is your favorite?

I do read the Persian blogs, both the ones that are coming out of Iran and the ones coming out of the US. Particularly in California, and LA, which of course is the largest collection within the Iranian Diaspora. I don't really have a favorite. I find blogs to be somewhat, wordy.

Self-referential?!

Yeah! Thank you, thank you. But, I will say this, what I find fascinating about blogs in Iran is that the Iranian Constitution, despite what we believe it to be, is an exceedingly modern constitution. Embedded in there are the inalienable rights of free speech, free press, free assembly, and within it the equality under the law of men and women. The problem isn't the constitution in Iran. The problem is that nobody is following the constitution. Part of that comes through via the horrific oppression of the press that the Iranian regime has to do you know, concocting all kinds of ridiculous laws, making it so that they are the only ones that control the paper production so that in the end if they can think of no legal reason to shut down the newspaper, they c an simply take away the newspaper's paper.

Very interesting.

All of these acrobatics that they go through in order to maintain their control of the press, none of that exists within the internet. Now, it is true that recently the clerical regime has started cracking down on the internet and blogistan, but that's something that they are going to find more and more difficult to do than simply taking away a newspaper's paper! In the United States we call blogistan the New Media and in Iran it is called "THE journalism."

I've got another reader question for you. The reader asks, "a central Shi'a belief is that God requires the leaders to rule justly. Does than tenet inform opposition movements right now? Will it? And is it being used by the current regimes?

This is a fantastic question.

I thought so too. I read it and thought OH! This is a good one. Maybe he should be writing for The Agonist.

(Laughs.) That is absolutely true and the foundation of Shi'ism is the notion of what is called "the just ruler". Actually, the theory of the just ruler precedes Islam. It is an ancient Zoroastrian tradition but of course Shi'ism is in many ways the amalgamation of Zoroastrianism and Islam. Put those two things together and you now have what we call Shi'ism.

But the notion of the just ruler is very important, I mean it is part of what we were talking about before with the idea of martyrdom. You don't just martyr yourself, that's suicide! You martyr yourself in the cause of justice. No other cause, but only in the cause of justice. And this is still very much engrained within the contemporary Iranian political culture of Iran and it is undoubtedly part of the symbolism and metaphors of the opposition movements in Iran. Both the religious opposition movements, because there is a very large and palpable reform movement within the clerical regime itself, who are desperately trying to excise themselves, their own colleagues out of the role of government and back into the mosque. It is a very powerful movement we don't hear much about.

But also within the non-religious opposition movement the much more nationalist opposition movement, in essence moving back towards the symbols and the metaphors of pre-Islamic Iran. And looking to this particular issue, the notion of the just ruler who's sole purpose is to maintain social justice on Earth and who the movement he/she breaks that covenant with the people immediately gives up his throne. Even the king could be removed at any time if he violated his scared duty to maintain justice on Earth. I think a lot of Iranian nationalists are saying, "what we have now is not that paradigm. And it has to change."

This really is a great question.

Good answer too.

The last question is I want you to just briefly discuss Muhammad's egalitarianism. Tell me, I read in the book about it, and I have read elsewhere about his egalitarianism. If you could just enumerate a couple of examples that really emphasize and exemplify that.

Well, Muhammad was born in an era in which the tribal ethic which was maintain some sense of equality and egalitarianism within the tribes and between the tribes had completely collapsed in the face of this stratification of society and the enormous amounts of wealth that were pouring into Mecca, the city of Muhammad's birth had created a situation in which you had the very, very rich and the very, very poor. And nothing really in between. When Muhammad began his own community it was basically a reaction to this social and economic stratification. In fact in the first years of Muhammad's preaching in Mecca rarely would his message necessarily be considered religious. There was not all that much of a religious innovation coming out of his message. This notion of monotheism was something that most of the Arabs, whether they were pagans, Jews or Christians, already subscribed to and accepted. What Muhammad was saying is that it is time to fix the social fabric of this society. And that's why he was kicked out of Mecca.

So when he went to Medina the home of the first Umma, or community, and he had the opportunity to create a new kind of society, one that had never been seen before in the Arabian peninsula, indeed one that had not been seen anywhere else on Earth at that time. He had the opportunity to put some of these principles that he wanted to inject into society into this nascent community. And he did that in a number of ways:

One, he equalized the blood-worth of every member in society. This was a radical idea because at that time the only way to maintain order was through this notion of an "eye for an eye." Of course, every person was worth a different amount at that time. In other words the shayk of a tribe was worth far more than, let's say, a slave or a child. And they had different pecuniary values. Literally a monetary value on people's lives. Muhammad changed that and made everyone's blood-worth the same.

Two, he also went through great strides to give women the opportunity to maintain some semblance of equality within the community. Certainly he didn't say women are equal to men in society. After all, we are talking about 7th century Arabia. But he did give them the right to divorce their husbands, the right to inherit, the right to maintain their own businesses and their own property, the right to keep their dowry as their own private property throughout their marriage. These were, again, revolutionary ideas in a society in which women were by and large considered property. Like cattle.

Those are two major innovations that this new society created. Both of which, of course, were almost immediately reversed upon Muhammad's death when suddenly this group of successors had to figure out, not just try to figure out what Muhammad would have said about a particular idea or issue, but at the same time were coping with the fact that Islam in a very short amount of time was moving from a tiny desert community in Mecca and Medina to the world's largest global empire. So, as one could imagine the societal and economic ideas that were prevalent in that time, far outweighed any notion of religious egalitarianism within the imperial faith. Of course there were lots of different kinds of Muslims in that era and a number of mystic groups and the Shi'a especially, but also within Sunni Islam itself had created their own pockets of communities where they tried to maintain that original sense of egalitarianism in the face of this rapidly globalizing empire. But for the most part Islam as a faith became, precisely what happened with Christianity: it became not just the religion of the faithful but the citizenship of the state.

Lots of really good material here, Reza. Thank you very much.

I want to add that I've read a lot about Islamic history and I have to say that this is the best single volume summation of Islam, which is really easy to read. It's smart book for the lay reader. And we at The Agonist wish you all the success in the world and hope your book becomes the next "Reading Lolita in Tehran."

Thanks, Sean-Paul and Agonist readers for taking the time to cover the book.

Our pleasure.