[Feflyinvelf]

بسم الله العلي العظيم

اللهم صل على أبي بكر و عمر و عثمان و علي و بارك اللهم على قائدهم و قدوتهم رسول الله و على آله و صحبه و سلم

This topic is copied and it talks about the books of Reza Aslan in general, here are what the brothers said:

Brother #1:
Alsalam alaykum,

I was in an "international" book store the other day and I noticed the "critically acclaimed best seller" - No god but God, by Reza Aslan. Out of curiosity, I picked it up, and went through a few pages.

It was after a few seconds that I realized that the chapter about the Prophet (pbuh) isn't really as long as I thought. I think it was around a third long. A little later, I realized that so much focus revolved around the mistakes of the caliphs and the superiority of Ali. It reeked of tashayyu. I looked up his bio and it turned out that he is originally from Tehran, Iran.

Most importantly, there are no references, nor does the author seem to care about relating the events that occurred after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) without including his own personal interpretation. It never ceases to amaze me how such a poorly written piece of text can sell so well. Brother #2:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
وعليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته
i'm somewhat familiar with him and the sense that i get from him is that he largely tries to reach the non-Muslim and even atheistic audience, which might account for work that we see as lacking in Islamic scholarship, whereas non-Muslims have seen as incredible.

Something to consider is the huge gap that takes place between selling to a knowledgeable Muslim audience and selling to a clueless non-Muslim audience. Genius works of fiqh would never sell here because most of the people don't much at all about Muhammad صلى الله عليه وآله سلم and don't care at all about how to do wudhu, or what some Arabs did 1400 years ago.
Books that tend to reach these people are those that are well written (in terms of being flowing and explaining things well) and are simplified.

Unfortunately this is the result of the lack of scholarship in the United States and even in the English-speaking world in general. This is why speakers like al-Sayyid al-Nakshwani or al-Shaykh Anwar al-'Awlaqi are hailed as great scholars in an unfortunate amount of corners. The situation is slightly different in England because they occasionally have great Islamic personalities visiting (like al-Shaykh al-Sudays), but in the U.S it's a much worse situation cuz of the distance and cuz a lot of these great Islamic personalities tend to be banned (like apparently al-Sudays is banned from the U.S because of "anti-Semitism").

i see this changing Insha'Allah because in the last 5 years alone I've seen some big changes in this regard, mostly because of converts like al-Shaykh Yusuf Estes or al-Shaykh Suhaib Webb going over seas and bringing this knowledge over here by translating works and learning the deen from the foot of the scholars, etc. The Shia have realized this and spend a lot more resources than Sunnis in doing this i think.

i'm not really defending Reza Aslan's book; just providing the context for the context that his books are written in. Also note that California (and esp San Francisco) tends to have more 'free-thinking' hippies who are more interested in philosophy and Eastern religions (like Buddhism) than most other areas of the U.S. So he's working in that environment as well.
So basically, Reza is reaching out to people like Steve Jobs, not people like you and me and we know what that would entail.

Also i'm amazed at how books here end up across the world and even in the Arabic world. i wish there was an Arabic bookstore 'round here lol Brother #1:
The context you've mentioned makes a lot of sense akhi. Perhaps the world needs more Sunnis that can write like him in order to reach that kind of "hippie" audience. =p Anyone can add anything...

[ftqwhbvxlcfop]

I read his book a few years ago, not knowing his personal beliefs... he is a Ithna Ashari from what I understand but some modernist type- loves democracy and and holds views like Islam is 'reforming'. Keep away

[Signabeademia]

He combines all three evils: twelverism, working for isma'ilis and modernism (and hence perennialism).