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Tavis: Reza Aslan is an acclaimed writer and journalist who has written extensively about Islam and the Middle East for 'The Nation,' 'Slate,' and the 'New York Times.' He's the author of one of this year's most critically-acclaimed books, 'No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.' He joins us tonight here in studio. Reza, nice to have you here.

Reza Aslan: Thanks for having me, Tavis.

Tavis: I am so enamored by, so many people are, this title, 'No god but God.' I, when I saw that, had a thousand different ideas that ran through my own brain about what this title meant. How did you, and why did you settle on this title?

Aslan: Well, 'No god but God' is the first half of the Muslim profession of faith. There is no God but God, and Muhammad is God's messenger. The thing about this deceptively simple sentence is that it actually is the sum and total of Islamic beliefs and - beliefs. This is one of the things that I mention in the book, is that Islam is not, it's not a creedal religion. It's not like Christianity. There isn't - a recipe of things to believe in order to become a Muslim. There's really just that profession of faith. Islam, a lot like Judaism, is much more of a religion of practice.

It's the things that you do that binds you to this worldwide community and that define you as a Muslim. And so that sentence, 'No God but God,' is both a reflection of what unites the worldwide Muslim community, but also it, because of the different ways in which it's understood, you know, amongst different sects, amongst different communities, it also indicates the diversity of the Muslim community. And that's the thing that I wanted to emphasize the most.

Tavis: Let's talk about this issue you want to emphasize, and indeed you did. I think when so many people think "Islam," they think of one religion, one ideology, and right now that ideology is - an ideology that hates this thing we call America. The truth of the matter is that Islam has different sects in it, different practices in it, not unlike Christianity, not unlike Judaism. Talk to me about the different, the three major different areas of Islam.

Aslan: Yeah, it's really strange, too, isn't it? Because nobody would think that, you know, there's only one Christianity, or there's only one Judaism, and yet there is this tendency, as you say, to think of Islam as this monolithic idea. Or, for that matter, to think of someone like Bin Laden, or really any single individual speaking for the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. That's like thinking, you know, Pat Robertson speaks for all Christians. The fact of the matter is that Islam is an incredibly diverse faith.

Yes, there are these sort of three major sects, what we would consider to be Sunni, or orthodox, or just mainstream Islam. There is of course the Shiite sect, which comprises about 20% or so of the Muslim world. And then there is this incredibly diverse and eclectic mystical element in Islam, the Sufis, that represent a whole host of other different kinds of sects and schisms. But even within these sects, there are an infinite variety of beliefs and practices.

I mean, you could take a plane from Baghdad to Cairo to Tehran to Marrakech to Chicago to Detroit to Los Angeles, and you'll never see the same Islam twice. And yet, I think because of the media focus on the violence and the terrorism that is being caused in the name of Islam, there is a tendency in the West to think of Islam as being this one, distinctly Arab, and monolithic idea.

Tavis: There are any number of truths that you help reveal about Islam, again, that run counter to what so many people, in this country, at least, believe about Islam. Not the least of which is that we, for whatever reasons, well, the reasons are obvious, many people believe that there is something about Western democracy, there's something about the way we do things that has run afoul, that has offended persons of Islamic faith. And you argue that that's not necessarily the case across the board, that part of this is an intra-Islamic duel, or battle, if you will. Does that make sense?

Aslan: Yeah. I think that's probably the most important thing to understand about what's going on right now with regard to the conflicts that are taking place throughout the Middle East and throughout, you know, other parts of the world, is that we have this idea that we're in the midst of some kind of clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. What we are witnessing is an internal conflict taking place within Islam.

One that's been taking place, by the way, for about a century and a half. It's just now we're starting to wake up and take notice of it because it has spread beyond the boundaries of the Muslim world and engulfed the United States and Europe. And by the way, deliberately engulfed the United States and Europe into this internal battle. And the way that I define this internal battle is as the Islamic reformation.

I mean, we are living in the period of the reformation of Islam, a period in which you have this civil war raging between those who are actively reconciling their faith and their values and their traditions with the realities of the modern world, and those that are rejecting those realities completely. And, in fact, reverting to, say, the "fundamentals" of their faith. This battle between these groups of Muslims has been going on for a long time, and for years and years and years, we had all - those of us who had studied the region were saying, well, look, the voices of extremism, the voices of fundamentalism, they're gone. They're dying out. This tide of reform has completely washed it away. And then September 11th happened.

Tavis: While we don't want to cast aspersion, Reza, on the entire Islamic faith, which is in part why you wrote this book, there is something, there is a particular piece of this movement, a particular sect of this movement, a particular - there's something that, there is some piece of this movement, rather, that has conflict with the way we do things in the West.

Aslan: Yeah, unquestionably.

Tavis: What - what drives that?

Aslan: Well, I think the most important thing to understand is that this is a political argument; this is an economic argument; it's a social argument. But of course it's going to be framed in the language of religion, because it's the language of religion that holds the most currency with people. It's a powerful language, as we know even in our traditions and our history. I mean, the President did describe the war on terror as a battle between good and evil.

That kind of language resounds in profound ways throughout the world, and especially throughout the Middle East, and especially throughout the Arab world, which is a part of this - you know, planet that has been mired in autocracy, has been mired in economic stagnation and political chaos. And for one reason or another, whether justifiably or not, really blames the Western superpowers, particularly the United States, for their oppression, for where they are in the world, and has managed to rally these Muslims to their cause against the United States by appealing to the one thing that they all have in common, and that is this sort of united faith.

Again, this isn't just about Islam. It's not as though Islam itself is a violent religion or that it is particularly open to violence. All religions have at their core this ability to be taken in a number of different ways. Either in extremist ways or radical ways or pacifist ways, whatever the case. And the way that you decide how a religion is defined is by the kind of society that you live in.

Christianity in the United States is not the same as Christianity, say, in China, or Christianity in Latin America, in which this is - particularly in Latin America, in which the social structure has created this almost militant liberation theology, in which the image of Jesus as a warrior fighting for the poor is a far different image than the image that we have of Jesus.

Tavis: So, like or loathe your explanation, accept it or reject it, one has to wrestle with the fact that this is the fastest growing religion, the most accepted and fastest growing faith in the world. Why is that?

Aslan: Well, I think partly it has to do with the fact that it is a religion that has an enormous amount of appeal to a large swath of people because of the fact, as we were talking about before, that it doesn't have this creedal formula. For instance, in the United States, the largest community of Muslims are African American Muslim communities, who came into Islam at a very early stage in the development of this country, particularly amongst the slave movements, who saw Christianity, for instance, as the master's religion, and wanted a religion of their own that preached the same exact message, that had the same exact morals and values, that in fact was really the same tradition.

Christianity, Judaism, Islam, this is all a single Biblical tradition that most of us are already familiar with, and yet was one that could be defined by themselves and for themselves. Islam, because there is no Muslim Pope, there is no Muslim Vatican, there is no central religious or political authority whatsoever, has become this incredibly eclectic and diverse religion that has throughout its 14 centuries been defined and interpreted in a host of different ways.

Tavis: On balance, I'm glad you said that, on balance, is that a good thing or a bad thing that unlike other religions, they don't have a single, singular or a titular head of this organization?

Aslan: That's a great question, and it's one that, you know, we wrestle with a lot. On the one hand, it's not a good thing because it does allow people, like Bin Laden, like Zarqawi, to claim themselves as the spokespersons of Islam. And, of course, those - who don't know about Islam just simply accept that and accept their word and their idea and their interpretation of Islam as somehow authoritative, when in fact it isn't.

On the other hand, it's a good thing, because it really does give Islam an opportunity to evolve and adapt to any kind of culture or understanding, whether it be, you know, communist or democratic. And that's another thing we mentioned before, this notion that somehow Islam is undemocratic, that cannot, Islamic values are anathema to democratic values. It's absurd. Christianity didn't - invent democracy. Judaism didn't invent democracy. Religions are simply the language with which we express ourselves and express our desires.

Tavis: There are many reasons why we can't paint any one faith with a broad brush, not the least of which is the fact, as Dr. King once said, that there is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us. So none of us are - faultless and blameless. That said, let me ask you a question that may be a bit unorthodox, certainly for many Americans, and certainly for many Christians. What, then, can we learn, you think, from Islam? This thing that so many of us are turned off to or believe that we understand, and our understanding is to - not to accept, but to reject this faith. What can we learn, do you think, out of this faith, or from this faith?

Aslan: I think the most important thing for people of other faiths, particularly Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, whatever, Americans who are so steeped in religion and who so understand and recognize the value of pluralism when it comes to religion, is that rather than tagging things that look foreign or exotic as wrong, or as just simply backward or violent, is to understand that there is this fundamental truth, that there is this God who wants to be known by humanity.

And that people are naturally going to understand this God in different ways. And they're gonna use different kinds of languages and different symbols and metaphors to express their knowledge and to express their experience of God. But just because we're using different symbols and different languages doesn't mean that we're not talking about the same God. Doesn't mean that we're not talking about the same conflicts and issues that people of all faiths and all religions struggle to deal with.

Tavis: So do you have reason to believe, finally, are you hopeful that this faith, in the world we live today, can be and in fact will be better understood?

Aslan: Unquestionably. I think it's already happening. I mean, one of the sort of strange positives that came out of September 11th is that Americans are now desirous of learning about this faith, of learning about this culture, and understanding beyond what they hear on the medias or what they hear from the pundits or the politicians, what it is about this faith that has obviously so enraptured such a huge swath of people, and that is growing so quickly.

And particularly in this country itself, Islam is getting to the point now where we're no longer gonna be talking about "Judeo-Christian" values. It doesn't make any sense anymore. Our neighbors, our teachers, our politicians, Muslims are a part of who we are as a country, and it's time that we start to understand that.

Tavis: His name is Reza Aslan. The new book from him is 'No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.' Fascinating conversation, Reza. Glad to have you on the program.

Aslan: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Tavis: The pleasure's all mine. Thank you, sir. Up next on this program, actress Hope Davis. Stay with us.