Book Review: God A Human History by Reza Aslan

Reza Aslan’s book gives a detailed chronological account of the concept of God perceived by human beings during the different phases of their existence on the planet. The book is divided into three parts. The Embodied Soul, The Humanized God and What is God. The writer takes a start from the Paleolithic time period. The concept of Shamans and their transcendental role is briefly discussed. Shamans were supposed to have one foot in this world and one in the next. In early unorganized religions, sacrifice played an important role as can be inferred from painted caves in Indonesia and in parts of Europe. During the Paleolithic period ancestors survived on scavenging and foraging. The author is of the view that belief in the soul is humanity’s first belief.

Furthermore in the book, the birth of organized society is elaborated in detail with agricultural revolution leading to the consumption of fewer vitamins and minerals and considerably less protein. The birth of organizational religion encouraged the transition from hunting to farming. Sumer civilization developed the first written language. They also invented the wheel and sailboat. The power of writing is so much that one can imagine the power of the word ilu in the Sumerian language became transliterated as Elohim in Hebrew and Allah in Arabic.

In the Neolithic period manism (ancestor worship) gained strength. At a later stage in the book Mesopotamian (Mesopotamia means between two rivers in Greek) civilization is also discussed. The architecture including the rectangular pyramidal towers of Mesopotamia temples are explained in detail.

In history many figures tried to dehumanize God including the Greek thinkers. Besides them a young pharaoh from the 18^th dynasty of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt became the first monotheist in all of recorded history. The Iranian prophet Zarathustra Spitama rose in approving monotheism in 1100 BCE.  Zoroaster called God as Ahura Mazda. Priests were known as Magi, and the other castes included warriors and farmers. After ten years of preaching he could only convert his cousin to this new religion. After his death Zoroastrianism decayed until the time of Cyrus the great, who was ruler of the Achaemenid Empire.

History’s first successful experiment with monotheism was led by a small Semitic tribe from the land of Canaan that called itself Israel. Conflict and war also affected religions in many ways. When the Babylonians destroyed the Israelites, the theological conclusion was that Marduk, the god of Babylon, was more powerful than Yahweh (The Israelite God). Other than that the complexity of the concept of Trinity in Christianity has also been elaborated. This includes Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The war between King Khosrow (Zoroastrian) and Heraclius (Byzantine) has been briefly mentioned.

The Sufi interpretation of Tawheed is highlighted which says that God is everything that exists. God should be considered as a light that passes through prism. Aslan in his conclusion explains his own religious orientation and quotes Ibn al-Aabi’s: “He who knows his soul knows his lord.”