Reza Aslan

Jews and Muslims make up less than 3% of the total population of the United States. Yet, despite their relatively small numbers, the members of these two minority groups often find themselves the focus of a disproportionate amount of media attention, particularly when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Beyond such international issues, American Jews and American Muslims find themselves struggling with similar inter-communal concerns when it comes to matters like education (for example tensions between student populations of Jews and Muslims on university campuses), politics (such as the swearing in of the first Muslim Congressman in the House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, or the omnipresent emails and robo-calls linking President Obama to the Muslim community that emerged during the 2008 Presidential election), or even pop culture (think of such recent Hollywood productions as Kingdom in Heaven, Munich, Paradise Now, and Traitor, to name but a few).^ In all of these matters, American Jews and American Muslims have consistently engaged each other in conversation - whether directly or indirectly; constructive or not - in ways that have usually eluded their co-religionists throughout the rest of the world. This has partly to do with America's ethos as a "melting pot" of different religions, ethnicities, and cultures. But it also has to do with the innovative ways in which Judaism and Islam have absorbed, and been radically altered, by the so-called "American experience." This book is an exploration of contemporary Jewish-Muslim relations in the United States and the distinct and often creative ways in which these two communities interact with one another in the American context. Each essay discusses a different episode from the recent twentieth and current twenty-first century American milieu that links these two groups together.^ Some deal with case examples of local inter-communal interaction, such as "dialogue groups," which can help us better understand national trends of similar activities in other parts of the country. Others focus on national trends themselves, thus giving us greater insights into individual incidents. -- Publisher description.

Spans a century of poems, short stories, novels, memoirs, and essays by Sait Faik Abasiyanik, Azra Abbas, Ghulam Abbas, Abu Salma, Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa'id Asbar), Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Pegah Ahmadi, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Nazik al-Malāʼikah, Mozaffar al-Nawwab, Melih Cevdet Anday, ʻArrār (Mustafa Wahbi al-Tal), Manouchehr Atashi, Reza Baraheni, Faraj Bayraqdar, Simin Behbahani, Alireza Behnam, Sadeq Chubak, Ismat Chughtai, Zayd Mutee' Dammaj, Simin Daneshvar, Mahmoud Darwish, Parvin E'tesami, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Forugh Farrokhzad, Altaf Fatima, Khalil Gibran, Hoiushang Golshiri, Melisa Gürpinar, Yahya Haqqi, Haydar Haydar, Sadegh Hedayat, Nâzim Hikmet, Abdullah Hussein, Intizaar Hussein, Yusif Idris, Muhammad Iqbal, Ali Sardar Jafri, Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Ghassan Kanafani, Orhan Veli Kanik, Refik Halit Karay, Cemil Kavukçu, Yaşar Kemal, Naguib Mahfouz, ʻAbd al-Raḥīm Mahmud, Saʻādat Ḥasan Manto, Miraji (Muḥammad S̲ānāʼullāh Dār), Zakaria Mohammad, Nader Naderpour, Kishwar Naheed, Aziz Nesin, Orhan Pamuk, Zoya Pirzad, Hamid Reza Rahimi, N.M. Rashed, Fahmida Riaz, Oktay Rifat, Zeeshan Sahil, Ahmad Shamloo, Cemal Süreya, Zakariyya Tami, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. Goli Taraghi, Akhtar ul-Iman, Saadi Youssef, Can Yücel, Nima Yushij, and Haifa Zangana.

The text of the Qurʼan in English translation, hand-lettered, within ornamental borders, and superimposed on the artist's paintings of life in the United States.

The wars in the Middle East have become religious wars in which God is believed to be directly engaged on behalf of one side against the other. The hijackers who attacked America on September 11, 2001, thought they were fighting in the name of God. According to award-winning writer and scholar of religions Reza Aslan, the United States, by infusing the War on Terror with its own religiously polarizing rhetoric, is fighting a similar war--a war that can't be won. Beyond Fundamentalism is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. At a time when religion and politics increasingly share the same vocabulary and function in the same sphere, Aslan writes that we must strip the conflicts of our world of their religious connotations and address the earthly grievances that always lie at its root. How do you win a religious war? By refusing to fight in one.Featuring new content and updated analysisOriginally published as How to Win a Cosmic WarFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

A cosmic war is a religious war, not between armies or nations, but between the forces of good and evil, a war in which God is believed to be directly engaged on behalf of one side against the other. The hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, thought they were fighting a cosmic war. Scholar Reza Aslan maintains that by infusing the War on Terror with the same kind of religiously polarizing rhetoric, the United States is also fighting a cosmic war--a war that can't be won. This book is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Aslan argues that we must strip conflicts of their religious connotations and address the earthly grievances that always lie behind the cosmic impulse. How do you win a cosmic war? By refusing to fight in one.--From publisher description.

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee gathering followers to establish the "Kingdom of God." He was tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived.