Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization. The book is both a study of the ideology fueling Al Qaeda, the Taliban and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Aslan argues that the United States, by infusing the War on Terror with its own religiously polarizing rhetoric, is fighting a similar war—a war that he asserts cannot be won. Aslan refers to Al Qaeda's jihad against the west as "a cosmic war", distinct from holy war, in which rival religious groups are engaged in an earthly battle for material goals. "A cosmic war is like a ritual drama in which participants act out on earth a battle they believe is actually taking place in the heavens." American rhetoric of "war on terrorism", Aslan says, is in precise "cosmic dualism" to Al Qaeda's jihad. Aslan draws a distinction between Islamism and Jihadism. Islamists have legitimate goals and can be negotiated with, unlike Jihadists, who dream of an idealized past of a pan-Islamic, borderless "religious communalism". Aslan's prescription for winning the cosmic war is not to fight, but rather to engage moderate Islamic political forces in the democratic process. "Throughout the Middle East, whenever moderate Islamist parties have been allowed to participate in the political process, popular support for more extremist groups has diminished." The New Yorker called Beyond Fundamentalism a "thoughtful analysis of America's War on Terror". The Washington Post added that it "offers a very persuasive argument for the best way to counter jihadism." Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth Aslan's book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (2013) is an historical account of the life of Jesus, which analyzes the various religious perspectives on Jesus, as well as the creation of Christianity. In the work, Aslan argues that Jesus was a political, rebellious and eschatological Jew whose proclamation of the coming kingdom of God was a call for regime change that would end Roman hegemony over Judea and end a corrupt and oppressive aristocratic priesthood. God: A Human History In this book, published by Random House in 2017, Aslan explains in accessible scholarly style the history of religion and a theory for why and how humans started thinking about supernatural beings and eventually God. An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville On October 11, 2022,