When I was buying the books for this class back in August, I was delighted to see that we were reading a book by Aslan. Two years ago, I took one of the special topics religion classes, and that semester it happened to be about religion and politics, so we read one of Aslan’s other books, Beyond Fundamentalism. Aslan wrote this book about religious warfare, and the most interesting topic I can recall is about how the 9/11 hijackers believed they were acting in the name of God when they did what they did to America, even though us Americans think the opposite. I wish that book wasn’t a rental book, so I could refer back to it right now, but my memory will do for now.
Since the book we are reading right now is basically the story of Islam explained in a less academic and a more theoretical and technical way, it is still slightly related to the book I previously read, because that seems to be a theme in Alsan’s writing style. (by less academic I mean Aslan doesn’t necessarily use textbook language that everyone will be able to understand, but he tells the exact history and talks about the religion as it is in the real modern world).
When I’ve been reading No god but God, I have continuously thought back to his work that I previously read. While I am positive I would be fine if I did not have a history of reading Aslan, I like that I at least have a little insight into his writing style and the topics he writes about. I have noticed that being a religion minor has helped me out a number of times in this class, and this situation is definitely one of them.