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Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic lllusion of an Islamic State

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This recently published book is a blunt assessment of the root causes of extremism that are experienced in muslim communities. The auther pulls no punches and his extensively researched book is a gripping read.

Tarek explodes the myth of a "Golden age" that has become the rallying cry of Islamists, who want to impose their political ideology of Caliphate on both muslims and non-muslims. He has thrown the gauntlet to fellow muslims to reflect and educate themselves. From Sudan to Saudi Arabia, the author painstakingly highlights the clash between muslims who aspire to the spiritual message of their faith and the Islamists who want to warp faith for gaining political power. He has also covered in significant detail, the struggles of moderate and secular muslim Canadians against radical and Saudi/Irani funded Islamist groups who want to drag the failed experiments of their patrons into Canada; experiments that are a leading cause of ghettoizing and separation of muslims from non-muslims.

In exposing the dishonesty and moral bankruptcy of the Islamist agenda, the author has done extensive research and highlights that the harsh, backward and intolerant injunctions that have been sanctified as law by extremists wither and collapse when placed under the microscope of objective scholarship. A significant section of his book examines the struggle for political power and the sectarian schism that immediately followed the Prophet's death. This is scholarship that few muslims can openly discuss and which has already resulted in the targetted killings of minority muslims in Pakistan. His analytical approach to this sensitive and seldom discussed chapter of muslim history is unlikely to solve the Sunni-Shia polemics. However, his analysis and research on this topic should be studied as they highlight the ultimate fallacy of the Islamist demand for an "Islamic" State.

In a frank assessment of history and culture of different muslim communities, Tarek untangles and delineates political compulsions from theology. From Abu Zar, the companion of the Holy Prophet and the first muslim social activist and a central Sufi personality to the courageous example of Sudan's Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, Tarek highlights the example of those who stood up against political opportunism and stood by their principles. He calls on fellow muslims to inculcate an introspective, dynamic and spiritual "State of Islam" within themselves instead of sinking further in the trap of extremists who want to drag them along in their theocratic nightmare.

In the words of the Toronto Star, "Fatah broaches the mother of all taboos" in discussing the issue of what happened the night Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) died. He cites medieval historians like al-Tabari and contemporary scholars like Prof. Liyakat Takim and Prof. Mahmoud Ayoub (among others) to construct the events which lead to Fatah writing this most compelling sentence:

"When Muslims buried the Prophet, they also buried with him many of the universal values of Islam that they preached."

Fatah's opus could very well have three separate books; one on history outlining the period of Islam after The Prophet died in 632 CE to the death of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad at the hands of the Mongols in 1258.

In other parts of the book, Fatah discusses the so-called contemporary Islamic states--Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia---suggesting with compelling arguments and detailed citations that all three use Islam to oppress their populations and to destroy the human spirit.

In the book, Fatah demolishes the justification given by Islamists for the creation of an "Islamic State" based on sharia law. He argues that all that God and the Prophet demand of Muslims is to follow the religions five principles; none of whom require such a theocracy.

He exposes the tactic of Islamists who while promoting armed Jihad based on the teachings of such 20th century Islamists as the late Syed Qutb and Hassan al-Banna of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Syed Maudoodi of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, deceive western audiences by falsely claiming that "jihad" merely means an "inner struggle". Fatah cites from the works of both Maudoodi and Qutb--available in US and Canada--to prove his point. He claims that both these political parties have their tentacles in Canada and the US, especially in university campuses.

Fatah has thrown the Islamists a challenge which I doubt they will respond to. If they do, they are likely to slap the label of "apostate" on him, to which he might say, "So what else is new".

I particularly enjoyed the single page "Manufacturer's Warranty" at the end of the book, where the Divine supposedly warns "end-users" that plagiarised and unauthorized versions of Islam are being bootlegged by shady "retailers". In the Warranty notice, God warns Muslims that all calls to his "Help Desk" will go unanswered unless callers can demonstrate that they have uninstalled all unauthorized "plug-ins" over the basic "operating system" of Islam :-)

This fine and valuable piece of scholarship ends with an icon of a smiley face --something amiss in the Muslim world.

CHASING A MIRAGE is a masterpiece from Tarek Fatah. I would call it the best book I have read in 2008 and I am quite a voracious reader, and an author of 46 books myself. An orthodox Muslim might find it offensive, but the truth is always bitter. For the open-minded, the work is an eye opener. It gives the reader plenty of material to look into the causes of the current global misery of Muslims. The great art of the author is that his criticism simultaneously points to the cure for the malaise of fundamentalism, extremism, and orthodoxy. I would advise the esteemed author to take possible verdicts of infidelity by Muslim clergy with a grain of salt.

The sensible among the Ummah will see Tarek as a sincere reformer. I wish him all the best.

I think it is a fair observation of affairs in the Islamic world. My dissatisfaction with this book came in chapter four when Mr. Fatah discusses "Islamic state of Iran". He doesn't know much about the history of Iran as best as he should. May be he could benefit a lot from reading books (such as Eternal Iran by Michael Rubin) other than a biased book like 'All the Shah's men' which he calls a classic, unfortunately. Mr. Kinzer author of that book is supposed to be a prime target of Mr. Fatah's book but here he praises him when he needs a Communist, pro-Jihadi idiot to prove his point. So he lost me there. Mr. Fatah says he wants to awaken the misinformed Western leftists but he quotes one of the worst of them: Stephen Kinzer. And quoting him to prove a point about the history of Iran is just plain wrong and un-academic. I am though with him on the terrible state of affairs in Iran and I praise Mr. Fatah for bringing this up in his book. Iranian people need to be heard and I am glad Mr. Fatah does them justice in this book.

Again, I need to say that Mr. Fatah ignores the facts about Iranian coup of 1953. He doesn't understand that PM Mossadegh was not ELECTED, rather appointed to the job and according to the constitution of Iran at that time, the Shah had the power to dismantle the Parliament and take the Premiership away from Mossadegh and when he did so, Mossadegh refused and resisted. The rest is story of history.

One more thing is Mr. Fatah's point that Iran, Turkey and Iraq OCCUPY Kurdistan. Well, that's another point Mr. Fatah does not appreciate. He probably doesn't know the history of that part of the world. Kurdistan has never been OCCUPIED by Iran as he claims, it has been PART of Iran since the dawn of history. He fails to back his claim up and leave it at that. Kurds consider themselves more Iranian in the Iranian national context than Kurds. Yes, they're proud of their heritage but Iran is not a country like Iraq or Jordan or other ex-British Empire possessions. It's always been independent and never been colonized and parts of the Kurdistan that happen to be in Iran have always been Iran's. Turkish or Iraqi Kurdistan were rather TAKEN AWAY from Iran during the Safavid dynasty. However, no body from the state of Iran did not go and occupy Kurdistan. The case for Kurdistan of Iran is very different. Yes, they are oppressed and harassed but they are not occupied... So I don't understand what Mr. Fatah would like to imply there. Kurdish provinces of Iran like Ilam, Kurdistan, Kermanshah and Azerbaijan e Gharbi have been parts of an independent, strong and united Iran since Persia was founded several thousands of years ago. I don't know where he got the 80 years from. World War I didn't take any part of Iran away. The end of the Great War saw the foundation of states like Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Persian Gulf sheikhdoms et al but it didn't have any territorial impact on Persia/Iran. Mr. Fatah fails again to present an evidence to prove his point on that matter. He just rants there to prove his valid point that Muslims have been silent about their own atrocities.

Moreover, Mr. Fatah doesn't seem to understand the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's not about land or water or even pure nationalism. It's never been. Whenever it has been about land, i.e Egypt's Sinai and Jordan's claims, the parties have managed to come to a peaceful agreement and Israel have given those lands back to the claimants. Palestinians on the other hand would like to see all the Jews driven out of their lands. When in 1948, they were asked to claim independence just like the Israelis, they refused. They want the entire place. Well, it doesn't work like that. It's also not historically correct to say that Muslims were peaceful before the death of Muhammed and became violent when he died and the (ever non-existent) peaceful Islamic leadership was also buried with him. Mr. Fatah fails to mention the mass killings of Jews of Bani-Qorayze'e clan or the killings that Muhammedans did when returned triumphant back to Mecca after 13 yrs of exile in Medina. Islam, in its core, is not as peaceful as Mr. Fatah claims it to be. The intolerance has always been part of the culture that embodied it and did spread the religion of Islam from Indonesia, Persia to the shores of Spain, Balkans and France. Again, that's part of history of the world and a matter of great discussion. But I would like not to forget the crimes done in the name of Islam from day one.

All in all, this book is something like a job that takes courage to be done as it tries to explore new ways of discussion on the possibility of reforming Islam. It is a good work/attempt by a voice of sanity and reason. The rather impossible task of reforming the religion of Islam will ultimately be done by the likes of Mr. Fatah and hopefully, he'll be able to see the day when his faith is reformed and civilized. I still recommend it to the western readers, with some reservations though.

Tarek Fatah has done his community a favor and the reading public a service by highlighting, at great personal risk, the problems he sees with Islamic fanaticism and the extremists desire to force-feed the illusion of an Islamic State on an unsuspecting world.

This book is worth reading because it is well-written, well-documented, and reaches out into uncharted waters. Hot-button items such as Human Rights in the Islamic context; the Apostasy Bill in Pakistan; Sharia laws; the Hijab controversy; and Jihad are discussed boldly and intelligently by the author.

One of his more fascinating chapters is the case study he has made of the Palestine-Israel problem which has been a global sore point for many years. He makes an excellent presentation showing that this problem could have been resolved had the Geneva Accord been implemented in 2003.

Most of the arguments presented by Tarek are in a thoughtful, reasoned way but it is in the chapter devoted to Jihad and specifically the "lesser" jihad (war in the cause of Islam) that he is most forthright

It takes courage to write a book like this. After making an honest appraisal of the malaise that affects Muslims he makes a plea to them to "oppose the extremists and present the more humane and tolerant face of our community" to the world. His may be just a voice in the wilderness but as Mother Teresa said in context, "What we are doing is only a drop in the ocean but the ocean would be diminished by that one drop."

Throughout his life and through this book, Tarek has sought to make a difference. He is concerned that the young men of his community may be led by Islamic scholars and clerics to "blame others for our shortcomings" and seek violently to establish a mythical Islamic State. He hopes that those who read his book will be secure enough in their faith to stand up and be counted so that the imbalance between the Islamists and Muslims is tilted in favour of the true Muslims. Maybe this is the wake-up call.

Clearly Tarek Fatah has a lot of honesty, integrity and courage. He challenges the powers-that-be in Muslim traditionalism, whatever their claims to infallibility or superiority. But what Fatah does should not be considered controversial. He just compares the Quran with the later pronouncements of dictators and clerics. What's so heretical about that?

Fatah and the scholars he cites show that the autocratic power of early caliphs violated the values of social equality and rule by community consultation. Then a long series of clerical pronouncements proceeded to correct the Quran. The sharia law of stoning adulterers violated the Quran's chapter 4 verses 15-16 and 25, plus chapter 24 verses 2-3. The sharia law permitting the killing of apostates violated the Quran's chapter 2, verse 256, chapter 3 verses 88-89, chapter 4 verse 94, and chapter 16 verse 106. During Muhammad's life three Muslims were recorded as renouncing Islam, and none of them faced any death penalty. The sharia law banning women's testimony in legal cases violated the Quran's chapter 24, verses 4 and 11-20. The sharia law allowing Muslim men to pronounce an "instant" divorce on their wives violated chapter 2 verses 228-229 and chapter 65 verses 1-2. The rule that women should "cover your heads" (chapter 24 verse 31) actually said "cover your bosom (gayb)" -- it didn't mention the head (raas).

Fatah explores Islamic history from the death of Muhammad forward. With unblinking honesty he relates the seizures of power, the political murders, the civil wars. To those who see the ancient caliphates as perfect models to which modern Muslims must return, Fatah answers "From the Ridda (Apostasy) Wars of Caliph Abu-Bakr to the humiliating defeat of the Caliph Mustasim, I have not found a single period that I could in all honesty say I would trade for my 21st-century existence as a Muslim living in a secular democratic society. Why Islamists would crave the bloody past is beyond rational explanation, but rationality was a victim of the caliphs."

As the Christian church after Jesus proceeded to add, delete, and correct Jesus' religion almost beyond recognition, so did the rulers and clerics of later Islam. Fatah has the courage to reverse the process. On his own authority he rejects traditions which contradict the Quran. He is concerned to improve human relations for the future, not to defend our brutal past.

--author of Correcting Jesus

The first third of the book looks at modern Shariah based nations Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The recurring theme is that Islamic States have all resulted in situations that contradict the teachings of the Prophet:

Pakistan began with democratic aspirations but quickly reverted to unequal laws disadvantaging minority Sikhs, Hindus, even Ahmadiya Muslims and others including Christians.

Of Saudi Arabia the regime is scathingly castigated for their wanton destruction of historic sites such as the house of Khadija or the tomb of Fatima. As such there are less than 20 remaining sites that date back to the time of the Mohammed, making the Wahabists, who are doctrinally opposed to turning individuals into saints and veneration of places associated with them, unsuitable custodians of the cradle of Islam. They have only had this role since their 1920's conquest of the Arabian peninsula. The 1979 siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by 300 Muslims from various countries which resulted in over 1000 deaths is blamed on Israel and America; the event itself Fatah discovers does not appear in a single textbook in the Muslim world, as it it never happened.

Under the Iranian constitution the Velayat-e faqih (supreme leader) must be an ethnic Arab from the Hashemite clan of the Quraysh tribe, a descendant of the Prophet's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali. "These men are known as the Syeds. Only an Arab Syed of Iran can rule as it's supreme leader." (pp67) How the Persians ever acquiesce to this, only Allah knows!

He quips that the Imans and Ayatollahs who are driving for Shariah, that is nations governed by Islamic principles, are attempting to navigate hell bent into the future using a rear view mirror focused on a mythical past, blaming every bump and crash on Israel and the West instead of themselves.

The middle section of the book is a brilliant deconstruction of early Islamic history and by itself worth 5* and the price of the book. This is a far cry from the usual hagiographic treatment given to the "Four Rightly Guided Caliphs". One learns a great deal about the rivalry that followed the death of Mohammed, how Ali was first shut out of the leadership and how descendants of the Prophet were hunted down and murdered for fear that they or their descendants would acquire political power.

The heart of Fatah's argument is a plea for separation of Mosque and State. The modern Islamists, he charges, are attempting to recapture something that never existed. In 1450 years of Islamic history there has never been a just Islamic state to revert back to. Even in the "golden age" of Muslim ruled Spain the concept did not work. In spite of a generous outflowing of culture and learning, was overshadowed by political intrigue and assassination.


In most of the book the premises, arguments and conclusions are well done, and one must certainly respect both his love and knowledge of history. However when it comes to Mohammed or Marx, well, love is blind:

What keeps Fatah from being considered a complete apostate is that he still holds fast to the catchecism of Mohammed's infallibility and the perfection of his example. He is unable to separate the Messenger from the Message or concede as is done in other faiths, that even prophets were imperfect vessels

As for Marx, in Chapter 5, "Palestine: Future Islamic State?" he relates how as a student he instantly bonded with the first Palestinian student that he met, simply because the man was a Marxist. He thrills at the audacity of Leilah Khalid, the infamous female hijacker of TWA flight 840. He argues that Hamas' religious approach is counter-productive, because under Islamic tradition Jews have the better claim. Abbas, simply because he professes to be a Marxist (other than by education in the USSR the claim is highly doubtful) is Israel's best opportunity for peace, and Hamas only grew because of Israeli support, corruption in the Arafat's PA having nothing to do with it, a neglect of the old Turkish saying "a fish stinks from the head down."


The last five chapters examine the dynamics of moderates and extremist Muslim factions in the West, focusing mostly on Canada. He's highly critical of Western politicians for endorsing to what he considers the more radical element of his community, with a tendency to identify Islam with beards and turbans. To contrast he offered a number of alternative voices. The treatment here was more anecdotal - interesting but not quite at the same level as the middle third.

The book ends with an afterward by Hussaim Haqqani which I found a bit at out of place with Fatah's ideas, and a very humourous EULA (End User License Agreement, often found in software package installs) for Islam warning the end user not to accept any unauthorized upgrades and is worth passing around in one's email.

Highly interesting, somewhat controversial and the middle section especially worth having around for reference.

I would rate it lowly because of the lack of a scholarly unbiased aproach to the subject. The work reeks of a predetermined agenda.

[...]

From what I have read, my opinion is that this book is very biased and I could somewhat taste the hatred for Muslim / Islamic culture in Mr. Fatah's writings.

When I read a book, my expectation is that the book will be free of judgement and biases; thus allowing the reader to make up his/her own mind. But in this case, the book is full of false assertions, inaccuracies of historical counts, and attacks 99.9999999% of things that Muslims hold dear and close to them.

Now, this does not mean that Mr. Fatah's criticism of the likes of Osama Bin Ladin are invalid, but what irked me is that he lumps lot of parts of Islamic culture in one plate and "applies" backwardness and intolerant.

Frankly speaking, I think Mr. Fatah is intolerant himself and needs to expand his horizons based on non-biases assessment of the Muslim culture.