Having been to Jaipur's historical Diggi palace grounds, it is impossible to summarise the five days of the ZEE Jaipur Literary Festival (17-21 January), an event of both magnitude and intellectual gravity, with a total of 220 thousand audience members circulating among the various halls and gardens, from morning until dusk, following the renowned figures through discussions held in six parallel locations. A sheet of paper could be spotted in everyone's hand: the festival programme, creased by endless revisions of attendees making their way through the crowd, catching a place in a discussion hall or tent before they were jam-packed. Some tuned into the discussion locations haphazardly, others came prepared with a list of topics they wished to indulge or literary figures they hoped to see. In this mind-stimulating assortment, several names drew my attention but in my notes a few lines underscored the name of Reza Aslan, the Iranian-born American writer and scholar who was to appear in a number of discussions. I chose Aslan for several reasons. He is a remarkable scholar of religions focusing on their history, origins and development. His lucid style and eloquence combines an in-depth academic approach with journalistic perceptiveness. Aslan has published three books, the last of which, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (2013), hit the nerve of American Christian conservatives who instead of discussing the book's contents attacked the author on religious grounds, questioning the credentials of a Muslim tackling a Christian topic (with Fox News demonstrating total ignorance in an outrageous interview-turned-attack on Aslan). In addition to their academic value, Aslan's books do raise the question of identity in interesting ways. Not only do they reflect his own journey in self-definition but they also show an interest in identity as an underlying motive for research. Aslan is also a political commentator, and while dissecting religion and history he applies his theories to today's political realities of the Arab World, including Egypt. It is the latter activity that attracts Western observers of the Arab world to Aslan, yet it is also the place where I found the most to disagree with. In Jaipur Aslan presented over 20 years of academic endeavour: readings, writings and experiences. In four discussions he joined or moderated, Aslan tackled a multitude of topics, from his own oeuvre to analyses of religious and socio-political realities of the Middle East, to discussions about dominant literary trends focusing on the craft of writing historical accounts. In "Leaving Iran" he recalled the time when his family moved to the United States soon after 1979 Iranian Revolution; in "Non-fiction Renaissance", he pointed to the international boom of the genre. "Jesus the Man, Jesus the Politician" was dedicated to his newly released Zealot, while "The Shia Axis" looked into Shia revival in Iraq then Iran, Syria and Lebanon following the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Aslan's first book, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2005), is a best-seller that was translated into 13 languages and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. How to Win Cosmic War: God, Globalisation, and the End of the War on Terror (2009) set down contexts for globalisation and the identity vacuums against the backdrop of growing religious extremism. In his most recent book, Aslan looks into 1st-century Palestine, gathering the historical facts surrounding Jesus the man, and challenges many beliefs about. Aslan holds four degrees including a Bachelor of Arts in religions from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD in Philosophy and Sociology focusing in the history of religion, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Aslan does not hide the identity struggles that marked his childhood. "As a seven year old I was trying hard to fit in. I did everything possible to distance myself from my culture, spending years on pretending I was Mexican..." During the discussion titled "Leaving Iran," Aslan pointed to the anti-Iranian sentiment in 1980s' America and his parents' belief that it was better – and probably safer – for young Reza to fully integrate into American culture. But as he was trying to define his own identity, Aslan eventually started looking back to his Iranian roots. He studied Persian and read Iranian history written by American writers. "The US is the nation of immigrants. And though it easily absorbs multiple cultures, this in itself becomes a liability. When asked to define national identity which is not based on a shared ethnicity, a shared religion, culture or race the definition of oneself points to a collective acceptance of certain values. In times of societal stress that notion of who we are becomes fractured," Aslan said in the same discussion. One can risk assuming that what put Aslan on the road of religious interests was in large part triggered by his personal search for identity. Whether religion became his personal life's driving force or not is something Aslan can decide for himself. In his books, however, he underlines the idea that religion is probably the only denominator which is not territorially confined and which can provide one blanket identity for people of different nationalities and cultures. In his book How to Win Cosmic War: God, Globalisation, and the End of the War on Terror, Aslan writes: "Now that globalisation has, at the very least, begun to loosen the grip of secular nationalism on our identity, people are beginning to reassemble around older, more primal forms of identity such as religion and ethnicity, neither of which can be easily controlled by the state apparatus." Aslan uses this statement in a specific context, looking into birth to Islamism and its radical off-spring, being a fusion of nationalism and religion along with the need to form a new collective identity that would not be challenged by geographical frontiers. Aslan's research always revolves around identities, their vacuums and evolutions within historical, social and political settings. "My citizenship is American; my nationality Iranian; my ethnicity, Persian; my culture, Middle Eastern; my religion, Muslim; my gender, male," Aslan states in another part of the same book. "The world has not changed as much as we have. Everything about how we define ourselves both as individuals and as members of a large society is transformed in a globalized world because our sense of self is not constraint by territorial boundaries." Aslan continuously entwines religion with politics to create a tool for analysing changes that take place in the world where religious principles regain importance or even make their way into political habitats. As such, Aslan's expertise is very timely while his strong confidence in live appearances as well as in writing is enough to grant him media attention. At the same time, Aslan's clarity of mind is his major success denominator, with Middle East politics providing a great arena for his talents. While How to Win Cosmic War is a brilliant scholarly presentation of very profound societal, cultural and political issues in which religion is a driving force, his academic theories sometimes fail to explain today's reality, Egypt being one example. The perfect catalogue of religious extremism history does not necessarily lead to a perfect analysis of actual political and social scenes, on which Aslan nonetheless remains an outspoken commentator. There is always something very tricky about renowned academics who capture and analyse reality through their magic ball of theoretical knowledge. Living in Egypt and experiencing firsthand the Middle East's burdens, I can't help picture Aslan on another continent, over 12 thousand km and one ocean away, enclosed in a huge library of which he must have read most volumes. He knows all that was written, no doubt; he follows the press and watches the news; his unique intelligence allows him to filter the data and provide a clear chain of ideas; and he translates his cumulative intellectual wealth into books which speak to millions. Though Aslan supports his studies with visits to the Middle East, he does not actually live in Iran or Egypt or Turkey or Algeria or Syria or Tunisia or Palestine, and he might not be aware of many embedded nuances of the mentalities of those nations and their sub-communities. The distance factor is not an issue when an academic studies religion, social or political phenomena from a historical perspective. However it might become problematic when the same historian uses this knowledge to formulate opinions about complicated current affairs. The same is applicable to many Western commentators who do not live within the societies they judge. Egypt in particular returns in Aslan's books and public appearances and becomes one of his hottest topics, especially after removal of Mohamed Morsi from power. In his 2009 How to Win Cosmic War, Aslan describes the Muslim Brotherhood as a force which can be successfully incorporated into the country's political life. He writes: "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood quickly realised that the responsibilities that came with working within the government (rather than opposing it from without) left little room for radical ideologies. Far from trying to transform Egypt into a theocracy, as Arab rulers across the region had warned it would, the Brotherhood fully embraced the opportunity of political participation by creating alliances with liberal intellectuals and secular democrats in the parliament. ... Gradually, the Muslim Brotherhood convinced even its staunchest critics that, given the opportunity, it could become a legitimate political force in Egyptian politics." Aslan's statements formulated back in 2009 seem patently false today, as in 2013 we gained a new perspective pointing to how this legitimate political force chose to embrace the opportunity of political participation by systematically excluding all secular and later even all other Islamist forces including their bigger ally ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nour Partywhich was kept completely out of power. Aslan replies however that time would have forced the Muslim Brotherhood to moderate their understanding of political participation. In our conversation, Aslan concentrated on the removal of Morsi from power and the consequences which according to him Egypt will face: "When you give an Islamist organisation, whether it is Brotherhood or not, an opportunity to take part in the political process, one of two things always happens: Either they moderate their ideology and achieve political success like the Justice and Development party in Turkey for instance or they don't and they fail like the Muslim Brotherhood did. I think that if they were removed in a political way, not in a violent military coup, then things would have been better," he said, overlooking the fact that Egyptians have very little experience of the democratic process, or indeed of separating politics from (rhetorical) emotion. This might be the starting point of any analysis. Whether we like it or not, whether we wish to change it or not, Egypt is a nation that has a historical alliance between the people and their military; and to many the military represents the last shield protecting them from the tyranny of the government or ruler, starting from Muhammad Ali Pasha who in 1805 ended centuries of Mamluk despotism, through Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, to another incarnation of the same concept in Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. In Egyptian history, modernity, secularism and science were only ever endorsed by the military. The Western model can only go so far with such totally different socio-historical paths and differing roles of the military and religion. What seems to a Westerner, however hung up about his background, a nightmare might actually be the only way out for a majority of Egyptians — and this perspective cannot be ignored in any analysis of change in Egypt. The term "military coup" recurs whenever Aslan has commented on Egypt. In an interview with Huff Post Live, for instance, Aslan says, "Whatever you feel about the military or whatever you feel about Morsi, that's fine. But get yourself a dictionary. Definition of 'coup' is a military that removed the civilian president from power. And people say 'yeah, but there were 14 million people on the streets.' Even if there were 80 million people on the streets, it still would be a coup. No matter how many people supported this." Technical correctness aside, Aslan underscores Morsi's and MB's political incompetence. "I'm not defending the Muslim Brotherhood. They were corrupt, they were inept. Morsi was an awful president and the MB did a terrible job in the year that they had. Many Egyptians would say that there was never an option [of political success] with the Muslim Brotherhood, that they were in the process of taking complete control over the society, but they [the MB] know that people power in Egypt has the ability to transform the government, to put pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood. The mistake was the whole notion. The military has been 50 years in absolute power in Egypt and one year out of it; [the military] cannot be trusted to be bearers of democracy," Aslan was telling me in Jaipur, continuing to explain the consequences that will result from the removal of Morsi from power. "If you do not give an Islamist organisation like the MB, which is interested in nationalistic concerns, an opportunity to take part in a political process, if instead you oppress it violently, then what you do is you radicalise it. And worse, you create a situation where they begin to let go of their nationalist ambitions and instead begin to adopt global ambitions. In other words, they stop being Islamists and they start being Jihadists." Yet it is world dominion through a Muslim Caliphate that drives most MB members; it was loudly advocated by Safwat Hegazi among other leading MB figures. In 2009 Hegazi was banned from entry to the UK for promoting hatred and was "considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by glorifying terrorist violence". His famous statement "Whoever sprays Morsi with water will be sprayed with blood", made during the June 2013 anti-Morsi protests, echoed on international scale. Sayyid Qutb, a seminal figure for MB members, openly points to his emotional closeness to the Malaysian Muslims while rejecting Egyptian Christians whom he considers "incomplete" or "non-believers". How this kind of drive becomes "nationalistic aspirations" is not explained by Aslan. "Islamism," he says, "is a force that can be dealt with, through political means (look at next door Tunisia), Jihadism cannot. Al Qaeda itself was created by a group of failed Islamists, people who had national ambitions in Syria, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia but those ambitions were violently crushed and they became Jihadists." It remains hard to accept the idea that, with all this in mind, integration is obligatory as otherwise we'll face militarisation and terrorism, in this case: Jihad. In How to Win Cosmic War, Aslan says: "the truth is that terrorism is almost always calculated choice. Terror is purposefully chosen, because it is often seen as the most effective, most expedient, and most economical method of pursuing a group's aims." But when the aims are neither plausible nor legitimate, what could be the consequences of endorsing such political blackmail? Aslan's theory would benefit from many details that contradict the broader picture he depicts: the role of the military, the failed education system, political awareness thriving among the young but which in Egyptian villages would be still limited to concepts of good and evil, young revolutionaries and their stances... He has nothing to say about social and cultural psychology, the mentality and the historical experience manifest in the intellectual capacities of the whole nation.
