REZA ASLAN | What makes this country so unique is that we are almost entirely a nation of immigrants. We have engrained in us this desire for pluralism, this knowledge for other cultures. But we also have this isolationism and this notion that what we have is fine the way it is and we do not want anything to change.

 
The U.S. is often referred to as a melting pot. But the U.S. is really more like a sponge. We take other ideas, other cultures and turn them into Americanism. That is what is happening with Islam. This is of course the fastest growing religion and many sociologists think that in another decade Islam’s growth in America will exceed that of Judaism and Muslims could be the largest religious minority in America.

 
It is time to understand that Islam is not a foreign or exotic religion. This is a religion of your brothers, sisters, teachers, politicians, etc. The flipside of that is there are always going to be those people whose sense of Americanism is fixed because America is not an ethnic identity, rather it is an ideological identity and any ideological identity requires another ideology, a counter ideology to define itself like communism.

 
ISLAMICA | Mahmood Mamdani, author of “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim” writes that “Terrorism is not a necessary effect of religious tendencies, whether fundamentalist or secular. Rather it is born of political encounters.”What is your assessment of Mamdani’s comments?

 
REZA ASLAN | It is absolutely correct. We tend to refer to this phenomenon as jihadism because it is a type of revivalism and because it has perverted the doctrinal definition of Islam. We also tend to refer to it as Islamic terrorism because we see it as a form of terrorism that is religious in nature.

 
But I think that is an incorrect way of looking at it. Religion is nothing more than a language, a way of defining other ideologies, other social and political constructs. So what we see as religious terrorism is born not out of religion itself but is but born out of political, social, and economic grievances, many of which are very legitimate and that lead to these public displays of violence.

 
Where does religion fit into it? It makes these grievances understandable to the terrorists and is also a means of reaching out for support. Terrorism is above all a symbolic act. The reason why it is a public display of violence is that it is not trying to make social change or political change but to reach out to other people, to galvanize support for their cause, to provide this illusion of power. It makes the terrorists seem far more than they actually are. We know—and this is not just true of Islam but of all religions—that the best way to appeal to the masses is to use religious language. Let us not forget that according to the president, we are fighting of war of good versus evil. This is precisely the language used to filter ideologies down to the masses. It is the language of religion that holds this popularity. So we have to be careful and understand that these grievances are not religious grievances but are just framed using religious language. We have to make that separation.

 
ISLAMICA | Let’s talk about Iran. Some have argued that Ahmedinejad is a hardliner and a regressive development in Iran. Others applaud him for his simplicity and for being a non-turbaned/clerical leader. What are your perceptions about the recent election in Iran?

 
REZA ASLAN| If you really want to understand Ahmedinejad as a candidate you need not look any further than George Bush. These two are precisely the same kind of politician. Both have very little political experience. Ahmedinejad was never elected to a position before, he was appointed mayor. Both present themselves as men of the people. They speak in this simple way. At least George Bush gives this impression that he speaks in a simple way. Both are leaders who have very little experience in what it takes to lead a country and so they surround themselves by people who share their political ideology and feed that ideology to the leader.

 
So the similarity between Ahmedinejad and Bush is that they are both essentially figureheads. They are the person at the top who represents the people, the ideology at the bottom. In Bush’s case it is evangelical neo-conservatism and in Ahmedinejad’s case it is neo-revolutionary, this revival of the original Islamic version of the revolutionary principles.

 
ISLAMICA | Does his election cause concern?

 
REZA ASLAN| I think it causes concern because the people who latched on to Ahmedinejad and are now feeding him the ideology that he is expressing, are people who are not good, either for Iran’s domestic position or its international position. Now that said, I think Ahmedinejad, like George Bush, has a real strain of independence in him as well and there have been many cases in which Bush has gone against his neo-conservative, even his evangelical base, and made these very independent decisions.

 
Ahmedinejad became president because he would fight corruption in Iran. It is amazing that so many, myself included, were so surprised by his victory when in reality he was the only person talking about the one thing that all Iranians, regardless of their class, or piety, care about. That is the collapsed economy that makes life in Iran unbearable for so many people. The problem is, and I think Ahmedinejad realizes this, that corruption at the highest level is being led by the clerics, these same clerics who latched on to Ahmedinejad.

 
I think at some point Ahmedinejad is going to have to realize that if he wants to tackle corruption, then he is going to have to tackle the very people who are legitimating his rule. If he chooses not to, if he chooses to back down, then he is going to loose the support of the Iranian people. The problem is that the only thing left would be his social conservatism, which I do not think is as hard-lined as its being made out to seem. But if that social conservatism is all that he offers, then he will run into some problems with the very people who voted him into power. Let’s remember it was not the poor people who voted him into power, it was the youth, the middle class, it was the constituencies who traditionally sided with the reformists. So if he starts to go against their wishes, then in many ways Iran will accelerate toward its inevitable outcome, which is this freer and more democratic Iran. 

 
So in a very absurd way, this could be the best thing that has happened if Ahmedinejad is truly stifled in his crusade against corruption.  

 
ISLAMICA | Can you comment for a moment about the Iranian youth you met during your summer 2004 tour of Iran. Most youth in Iran were too young to remember the Shah and only know of the stern Islamic republic. As a young Iranian-American yourself, what do you think the Iranian youth want today? Do they want to see a diminished, absent, perhaps reformed role of Islam in state politics?