"No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and future of Islam." — Reza Aslan (312 pages, $25.95, Random House)

By TEMPLE A. STARK, Casa Grande, AZ

I don't hate Islam nor am I looking for reasons to forgive for the terrible things that happen in its name.

In this way, I may not be the target audience for this book.

Still, I want to understand the religion that has shaped America's character in recent years. The religion can be attacked but it can't be ignored.

The author, Reza Aslan, is an Iranian, and a former assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa. He has an argument that threads throughout the book about how Islam will be modernized.

In Aslan's prologue: "This book is not just a critical reexamination of the origins and evolution of Islam, nor is it merely an account of the current struggle among Muslims to define the future the future of this magnificent yet misunderstood faith. This book is, above all else, an argument for reform."

Aslan has confidence that the less violent path will be chosen. (Go here for a Blogcritics interview of the author by Keith Gottschalk)

Above all the book is a condensed, well organized history of the birth of Islam starting even before the prophet Muhammad. Through that history and through the description of a religion meant to be egalitarian, generous, fair, welcoming of other religions (and ahead of its time) the reader gets a very clear, extremely sad picture of what could have been.

The reality of what Muslim is meant to be is not the strength of the religion today; the extremist face of the religion is what most people know. From a national perspective it overshadows the hundreds of millions of Muslims who don't fit the preferred image of Western cultures.

The history presented here reveals the deep roots that Christians and Jews and Muslims share, starting with the Zoroastrians. Much of the mythology surrounding Jesus was foretold by the Iranian prophet Zorathustra.

But Islam started with a vision. Muhammad receives a presence that literally grips him so hard he cannot breath. From that moment, around the year 620, he sees himself as the messenger of the one God. Muhammad has his own doubting Thomases who label him a charlatan. Or as was known at the time, a mere "Kahin" or fortuneteller.

Because of his insistence on economic justice in the very commercial city of Mecca, ruled by the Quraysh, Muhammad was forced to flee to Yathrib, which later came to be known as Medinat an-Nabi (the home of the prophet), or more simply, Medina.