Review of “Chasing a Mirage”: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State” by Tarek Fatah

  • 0

Review of “Chasing a Mirage”: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State” by Tarek Fatah
Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic lllusion of an Islamic State. Tarek Fatah. Published by Wiley, 2008. $28.95 pp.432

This book is written by a self-described Punjabi Indian born in Pakistan and now residing in Canada. It is written primarily to the author’s “Muslim brothers and sisters” but also to “ordinary, well-meaning, yet naïve non-Muslims of Europe and North America”. The volume is one long extended plea to give up the political blindfolds and intellectual shackles that Islamicists have placed on the community and to reflect honestly on the problems being faced by Muslims and Islam.

The basic problem, as Farah puts it, results from two stream of Islamic practice that have been running in tense parallel since the days of Muhammad. The one stream stresses strengthening the state of Islam, the other on establishing an Islamic State. It is the former stream, that of the religious message of Muhammad, with which the writer identifies himself, the Islam, as he says, that gave the world Rumi, Averroes and Muhammad Ali. But this stream of Islam is now in particular danger of being overwhelmed by the other stream, that of political Islam. Islamic imams and teachers have been preaching that true Islam is possible only in an Islamic State. To this end, they have created a myth of the “Golden Age of the Caliphate” in which Muslims thrived because they controlled the political levers of the areas in which they lived. In making this claim, Fatah tells us, Islamic Statists have reduced Islam to politics and in doing so have lead their community into an intellectual, moral and political dead end.

Part One, entitled “The Illusion”, traces the genealogy of the notion that there must be an Islamic State for Islam to flourish. This section opens with a moving story of the death in jail of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This story, Fatah tells us, illustrates the dominance of the Islamic State over Muslims who are dedicated, in contrast, to promoting the state of Islam. This resurgence of the militant view of an Islamic State in modern terms goes back to Abul Ala Maudoodi (born 1903), a Sunni Pakistani thinker. It was Maudoodi in the 1930’s and 40’s who argued forcefully for the notion of jihad to create a Muslim state under the rule of sharia. Maudoodi wrote for example, “An independent Islamic state is a prerequisite to enable them [Muslims] to enforce Islamic laws and fashion their lives ass ordained by God.” (cited by Fatah on page 7). Maudoodi goes on to argue that such a state will “eradicate and crush with full force all those evils from which Islam aims to purge mankind.” (cited on p. 9). Further, Mawdoodi argues that when the House of Islam is in danger, then personal safety is of no value; and to refuse to fight for the Islamic State (that is, participate in Jihad) is in fact tantamount to betraying Islam. Fatah argues vehemently that this statement of matters by Maudoodi not only distorts the meaning of the Quran but in fact, by crushing and eradicating Muslim thinkers and politicians who disagree (like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan, Mahmoud Taha in the Sudan, Ali-Abel al-Razik (sic) in Egypt), has distorted Islam and lead to the current dysfunction of much of Islamicist leaderhip. In short, Maudoodi’s Islamic State is in the process of eradicating Islam.

The remaining chapters in Part One are based on a simple premise. “If ever there was a case to be made against the creation of an Islamic State, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan provide stellar examples.” (p. 24). Each of the next three chapters takes up the case of one of these countries. Fatah’s conclusions could not be clearer. “Pakistan”, he tells us, “is a living testament to the bankrupt idea of an Islamic State.” (p. 43) As to Saudi Arabis: “Unless Muslims demand an end to the monarchy of the Saudis and an accounting of the crimes committed against Islam and Muslims by the children of Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi sheikhs, non-Muslims will not take our cries for justice seriously.” (p. 55). Iran maybe gets the harshest treatment of all: “Iran under the ruling ayatollahs is the quintessential Islamic State whose main victims have been the people of Iran; the Persian spirit; and, tragically, the very state of Islam.” (p. 69). The final chapter in Part One considers the topic “Palestine-Future Islamic State?” While Fatah holds that the Palestinians deserve a state and to live in dignity and freedom, he warns them that pushing for an Islamic State will lead them to the same disappointments that have been experienced in Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere. Here Fatah’s pleas often becomes more political than moral, “No American will listen to a screaming mob flying Hezbollah and Hamas flags…, and chanting ‘Death to America’ in unison with Iranian ayatollahs. This is a recipe for disaster, not for an independent and sovereign Palestine.” (p. 82) At the same time, Fatah scolds Israel for having a hand in nurturing the Islamicists and in discrediting secular and democratic leadership. The chapter, and Part One, end with a plea to both Palestinians and Israelis to understand that there needs to be a Palestinian state, but that it needs to be a secular and democratic state, not an Islamic State. Both sides need to move beyond that myth that the only state that Muslims can live in is an Islamic State in Maudoodi’s sense.

The second part of the book looks at the political history of Islam. Since those who propose an Islamic State always point back to the classical period as the ideal, Fatah urges his readers to follow him as he examines more closely the politics of the early Islamic caliphates. In the process he thoroughly deconstructs the myth of a once perfect Islamic polity. Chapter Seven, for example, examines the period of the first four “Righteous Imams”, that is Abu Bakr (the first successor of Muhammad), Umar, Uthman and Ali. This period of the Companions is often looked upon as the model for all future Islamic governance. Fatah examines closely the political infighting, intrigues and violence that characterized this early period of Islamic rule and argues that the players often put political ambition over the state of Islam. In some cases he shows sympathy for the difficult choices that had to be made to preserve the nascent Muslim community. In other cases he laments the decisions that emerged – the priority of the Qurayesh over all other Arab tribes, the priority of Arabs over all other Muslims and so on. But throughout his argument, he is intent on making two points. The first is that this period was hardly ideal even by the standards of its own time. Second the early Caliphs, even given the benefit of the doubt, hardly do, or should, establish a model of governance for the twenty- first century. The chapter on the first four “Righteous Caliphs” is followed by similar examinations of the Umayyad, Abbasid and other Muslim dynasties. The bottom line is that no “Golden Age” ever existed in which a perfect and pure Islamic State existed and functioned. The Islamic State preached by Islamicists is a myth and an illusion.

Part Three looks at the consequences that imposing the myth of a return to a golden past has had on Muslim leadership in modern times. Four topics are taken up in these chapters: sharia, jihad, hijab and the “Islamist Agenda in the West”. In each case Fatah shows that young Muslims are being mislead into believing that certain institutions and behaviors are inherent in Islam and must be subscribed to, when in fact these institutions and behaviors are often in violation of the very principles of the faith as that faith was established by Muhammad. Fatah argues over and over that these institutions and behaviors were introduced into Islam later by Islamic Statist leaders who were more concerned with their own financial, political and social needs than in nurturing the teaching of the prophet or promoting the state of Islam.

The book ends in a plea: “If there is one thing that we could do to help ourselves, it is to end the addiction to victimhood that has blinded our senses, rendered us incapable of moving forward. Almost everything that goes wrong in the Muslim world today, we are told, is the fault of the United States and those Jews. … My fellow Muslims, we have got to grow up. Let us stop chasing a mirage.” (p.339).

Mircea Eliade, the historian and philosopher of religion, argued that all religions contain within themselves a powerful impulse to recapture the purity of the religion in its original form. This Eliade termed this “the myth of eternal return”. To be sure, there is no evidence in this book that Fatah even knew of Eliade’s work. Nonetheless, he has given us virtually a textbook example of just such a myth and how it has been politicized and made into a massive popular agenda. Fatah does a compelling job of deconstructing this myth, but in the end substitutes his own myth of return. This time, however, the return is not to the mythic Islamic State, but to the original purity, humanity and tolerance as taught by Muhammad. Nonetheless, he is undoubtedly correct that if the myth of return envisions an Islamic State as opposed to an elevated state of Islam, then we are all on this planet due for a very difficult future.

Peter Haas, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH is a member of the SPME Board of Directors

*****

SPME Faculty Forum Editor’s note: This book can be purchased through SPMEMart

Review of “Chasing a Mirage”: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State” by Tarek Fatah

  • 0
AUTHOR

Peter J. Haas

Abba Hillel Silver Professor of Jewish Studies

Director, The Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies

Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio

Topics:

 

  • Modern History of The Middle East

 

 

  • Western Religions ( Judaism, Christianiy, Islam and their Interrelationships )

 


Read all stories by Peter J. Haas