Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan
Reza Aslanis an Iranian-American author, public intellectual, religious studies scholar, producer and TV host. He has written three books on religion: No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization and Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Aslan is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the International Qur’anic Studies Association. He is also a professor of creative...
NationalityIranian
ProfessionTeacher
Date of Birth3 May 1972
Anyone who says that Iran will commit suicide with its nuclear power is a moron and has no business in discussion.
My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material.
A politician is a politician whether he's wearing a suit or a funny hat.
The idea that education will lead to a lessening of bigotry is just factually incorrect.
Even the Quran, which Sufis respect as the direct speech of God, lacks the capacity to shed light upon God’s essence. As one Sufi master has argued, why spend time reading a love letter (by which he means the Quran) in the presence of the Beloved who wrote it?
Things never happen the same way twice, dear one.
But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you might know me better there.
The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.
The way you confront an organization like that is twofold. No. 1, you kill their militants. There is no room for discussion or negotiation when it comes to an ISIS or an Al Qaeda militant. They don’t want anything concrete. And if you want nothing that’s measurable or concrete, there is nothing to talk about. You must be destroyed.
Why? Why not? Why not you? Why not now?
God doesn't make you a bigot. You're just a bigot.
Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.
I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context... you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he lived.
Is it possible that Jesus, unlike 98 percent of his fellow Jews, was literate and educated? Yes, it's possible.