Friends,
Chasing a Mirage, the book I have been labouring over for the last two years and that critiques the current problems facing Islamdom, the historical roots of its inner conflict, the contemporary implications, and the Islamist Agenda in the West, went to press last week.
The book, published by John Wiley & Sons, should be in bookstores across Canada by April 24, 2008. To ask for a review copy, please write to Erin Kelly of Wiley at ekelly@wiley.com.
Here are some advance reviews about the book:
"With lucid prose and hard historical facts this book meticulously demonstrates how, from the very beginnings of Islam to the present times, the pursuit of a sharia-based religious state has inspired endless divisive, internecine wars between Muslims. Its scathing truths will surely invite the wrath of some Muslims, particularly those living in the West, who still pursue the chimera of a new world caliphate. But this is also an empathetic work, fundamentally respectful of Islam and its Prophet, driven by worry at the global plight of Muslim societies. Fatah argues passionately for universalism instead of exclusivism, integration instead of ghettoism, and makes a powerful appeal for the silent majority of Muslims to speak out before it is too late. This work of courage and daring needs to be read widely.- Pervez Hoodbhoy
Professor, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan, and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA.
"Tarek Fatah has written a provocative and challenging book which is a must read for anyone who cares about these issue.
- Janice Gross Stein
Director, Munk Centre for International Studies
University of Toronto.
"Chasing a Mirage should be required reading for the Left in the West who have mistakenly started believing that Islamists represent some sort of anti-imperialism. Tarek Fatah convincingly demonstrates that the Islamist agenda is not only medieval and tribal, it is misogynist and reactionary and has been a serious threat to progressive forces throughout history. The agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-e-Islami must never be confused with the struggle for social justice, equality and enlightenment. Chasing a Mirage is an extremely valuable contribution to the fight by progressive Muslims against Islamist fascism.
- Farooq Tahir
Secretary General
Pakistan Labour Party
"Tarek Fatah's is a voice that needs to be heard. Canada needs a healthy, reasoned debate about the issues he is raising, and indeed so does the world. He is never afraid to speak his mind, and he refuses to shrink quietly into the night. The questions he is posing are critical.
- Bob Rae
Foreign Affairs Critic, Liberal Party of Canada.
"In Chasing a Mirage, Tarek Fatah takes a unique look at Islamic history, one that may cause some discomfort among the orthodoxy. The book provides an amazing insight into the power struggles that have plagued Muslim society for centuries and how Islam has often been used as a political tool, rather than as a religion. Fatah also addresses internalized racism within the Muslim community and the role it continues to play in conflicts like the one in Darfur. The book is a valuable contribution to the on-going debate within the Muslim community about how it reconciles with modernity.
- Senator Mobina Jaffer
Parliament of Canada, Ottawa.
"This book focuses on the internal debate within the Muslim world of today and attempts to explain the rise of political Islam from the viewpoint of a critique of Muslim historiography and hagiography… the author reminds us that the sacralisation of Muslim politics and the canonisation of Islamist political thinking was the direct result of centuries of centralisation of power (both political and representational) at the hands of right-wing Muslim demagogues and ideologues whose own politics can only be described in present-day terms as Fascist and intolerant.
- Farish A. Noor
Prrofessor, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin; and
Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University, Jogjakarta, Indonesia.
"This fascinating work by brave and brilliant Tarek Fatah is simultaneously thought-provoking, instructive and enlightening for laymen and scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim. This wonderful combination of knowledge, wisdom and foresight – a progressive and honest Muslim's cry from his heart – is an invaluable and rare addition to the corpus of Islamic literature in the post-Nine-Eleven world, a bold step towards Islamic Reformation and Enlightenment. I find Chasing a Mirage a timely wake up call for the pathetically retarded, arrogant and ignorant Muslims, whose collective denial of self-inflicting wounds and their ridiculously impractical quest for the elusive Islamic State are responsible for their backwardness and terrorism in the name of Islam. One may fully agree with the author that it is high time the Muslim Ummah gets its sense of direction, and this may come only through democracy, freedom and knowledge.
- Taj Hashmi
Professor, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu.
"Fatah writes with a startling knowledge of and empathy for his religion and its adherents. He argues with biting intelligence for a genuine and cleansing understanding of Islam's history and how it should be understood in the modern world. His analysis of the difference between a state of Islam and an Islamic state is vitally important. This is the best criticism; based in love.
- Michael Coren
Columnist, Toronto SUN
"Tarek Fatah rightly explains that the decline of the world's Muslims does not come from the absence of a puritanical Islamic state. It is the result of the state in which the Muslims currently find themselves. He also calls for making a distinction between pietistic Muslims and those pursuing power in Islam's name. Some of his views, especially in relation to U.S. policies and the war against terrorism, are bound to generate controversy and not everyone agreeing with his diagnosis will necessarily agree with his prescription. But Fatah joins the expanding list of Muslim authors challenging Islamism and demanding that Muslims should revert to Islam an essentially spiritual and ethical belief system instead of stretching history to present Islam as a political ideology.
- Husain Haqqani
Professor, Boston University
Co-Chair of the Islam and Democracy Project at Hudson Institute, Washington D.C.
"Tarek Fatah has dared to question the received wisdom about the centrality of the Islamic State to the destiny of the universal Muslim community. He shows through painstaking, meticulous research that the sooner the Muslims rid themselves of the deadweight of wasteful and vain centuries of tribal and clannish feuds and sectarian strife in the name of true Islam and the Islamic state the greater will be their chances of getting out of the rut of obscurantism and fanaticism. Like all other civilized religious communities of the world the Muslims too need to adopt secularism and pluralism as an integral part of their social and political orders. I am sure this book will generate much-needed critical discussion on political Islam.
- Ishtiaq Ahmed
Professor of Political Science, University of Stockholm, Sweden.
Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), Singapore.
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From the Inside flap cover
In Chasing a Mirage, Tarek Fatah opens a window on the Muslim world that reveals a blighted landscape. Fatah, a Canadian Muslim born in Pakistan argues that Islam has been hijacked by radicals who falsely invoke the Quran and prophet Muhammad for their own political purpose that offends the spirit of Islam.
At the heart of the matter is the duplicity of imams who decry the west for the ills that affect Muslims. Such invective deflects the failure of most Muslim countries to offer a modicum of freedom, human rights and equality—not ideas that are the purview of western countries, but indeed are inherent in the spirit of Islam. Where did things take such a wrong turn?
In the author's assessment, the Quran did not prescribe that Islam should take on a political form—an entity that is the Islamic state. Yet in the aftermath of the Prophet's death, two streams of Islam emerged. One was political and imperial, seeking power and domination, reverberating through the ages and resulting in war and bloodshed among Muslim brothers. The other Islam was spiritual, which unleashed the human spirit, triggering an age of enlightenment that once was the hallmark of science, literature, music, and mathematics. The author suggests that the crashing end to Islam's era of intellectual supremacy was a direct result of political Islam inflicting a crushing defeat on the spirit of Islam.
In a global movement, Islamists have worked to establish the Islamic state, while Muslims continue to be sacrificed for a cause that is rooted in deceit and delusion.
Can a millennia of aggression be brought to a halt? Chasing a mirage is unequivocal in its answer and in its remedy to end political violence that is inimical to Islam and its state of grace and peace. The book urges Muslims to give up on the Islamic State and strive for the state of Islam.
Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State
ISBN: 978-0-470-84116-7
Hardcover, 432 pages.
April 24, 2008
CDN $31.95
Pre-order at Amazon.com, Indigo-Chapters or at Barnes & Noble
The author analyzes the diverging aspirations that separate the Islamist from the Muslim, and the Islamic State from the State of Islam.
Pre-order today at Amazon.com or Chapters.ca
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