Zahir Janmohamed recently sat down with REZA ASLAN to interview him about his latest book, No god But God, and to discuss the current situation in Iran.

Reza Aslan

Until recently, Aslan was both Visiting Assistant Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His articles have appeared in Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Slate, Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the Nation and he has appeared on Meet The Press, Hardball, The Daily Show, and Nightline. No god but God is his first book. 

 
ISLAMICA | Thank you for joining us, Reza. What initially intrigued and struck me about your book was your unique and refreshingly creative style of prose. As a graduate of the famous Iowa’s writer’s workshop, can you talk about your approach to writing this book? How did your experience in creative writing inform and shape the prose of this book?

 
REZA ASLAN | There is a tendency in literary circles to talk about the different genres of writing such as non-fiction, fiction, poetry, biography, etc. But to me there are only two genres of writing: good writing and bad writing. When I approached this ostensibly nonfiction book, I approached it in the only way I knew how—which is to write it as though I were writing a fiction book or a novel. I think that really helps for two reasons. First is a lot of things I talk about in this book are really complex such as issues of religion, politics of the Middle East, and the corresponding nuances of these two. I knew if I wanted to appeal to a larger audience, I would need to present these issues in a manner that would engage the reader.

 
Second, the thesis of the book is that religion is in itself a story. It is not so much a history as a story and I wanted to make sure that these myths, these sacred stories appear and sound no different than the secular stories that we talk about and to show that there is a collision between scripture and the stories that we read today. So it became a very good way of writing a book about religion to write about it in this novelized way.

 
ISLAMICA |As someone who is actively engaged in speaking about Islam, how do you reconcile the fact that although there is a rise of awareness about Islam in America, there is also a rise in hate crimes against Muslim,Arabs, and South Asians?