Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Triggering a state of Islam
Triggering a state of Islam
[In this the first of four edited excerpts from his new book, Chasing the Mirage, Tarek Fatah explains why he is challenging fellow Muslims to be honest with themselves about the current state of their faith and their place in the world.]
The phrase "state of Islam" defines the condition of a Muslim in how he or she imbibes the values of Islam to govern personal life and uses faith as a moral compass. In contrast, the "Islamic state" is a political entity: a state, caliphate, sultanate, kingdom or country that uses Islam as a tool to govern society and control its citizenry.
The phrase "state of Islam" defines the condition of a Muslim in how he or she imbibes the values of Islam to govern personal life and uses faith as a moral compass. In contrast, the "Islamic state" is a political entity: a state, caliphate, sultanate, kingdom or country that uses Islam as a tool to govern society and control its citizenry.
At times, these two objectives overlap each other, but most often, they clash. Islamists obsessed with the establishment of the Islamic State have ridden roughshod over Quranic principles and the Prophet's message of equality. However, Muslims who have striven to achieve a state of Islam have invariably stepped away from using Islam to chase political power, opting instead for intellectual and pious pursuits. These were the people responsible for what is glorious about our medieval heritage and Islam's contributions to human civilization.
My book is an appeal to those of my co-religionists who are chasing the mirage of an Islamic State. I hope they can reflect on the futility of their endeavour and instead focus on achieving the state of Islam. Islamists working for the establishment of an Islamic State are headed in the wrong direction. I hope to convince my fellow Muslims that clinging to mythologies of the past is the formula for a fiasco. I would hope they stand up to the merchants of segregation who have fed us with myths and got us addicted to a forced sense of victimhood. Conventional wisdom in the Muslim world dictates that to move forward, we need to link to our past. Fair enough, but in doing so, we have all but given up on the future, labelling modernity itself as the enemy.
In 2002, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released a scathing report slamming Arab countries for oppressing women, subjugating citizens and failing to provide adequate education.
The report, written by distinguished Arab intellectuals and presented by Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, the former deputy prime minister of Jordan, accused the Arabs of squandering oil wealth and gave them a failing grade on virtually every measurable human index from education to economy, development and democracy. Hunaidi suggested that only Arabs can address what she called "some very scary signals," and she summed up by concluding: "The three main deficits are freedom, gender and knowledge."
Reaction to the UNDP report was predictable. Soon after it appeared in a Canadian newspaper column titled "Tough Report Says Arab World Stuck in Dark Ages," a prominent Egyptian Canadian responded by accusing the newspaper of running a "racist" headline. Instead of reflecting on the report and worrying about its findings, the writer went on the defensive, making the outlandish claim that "there is more freedom of the press in Egypt today than in Canada." It is this inability to face the truth that has become systemic among Muslim opinion leaders. This attitude is cause for serious concern. For it is far more difficult to acknowledge our mistakes than to blame them on a foreign conspiracy.
Acknowledging the unspeakable, to wash some dirty linen in public, is to say to my Muslim brothers and sisters that we are standing naked in the middle of the town square and the whole world is watching. If we do not cleanse ourselves with truth, the stench of our lies will drive us all mad.
My book is also aimed at the ordinary, well-meaning, yet naive non-Muslims of Europe and North America, who are bewildered as they face a community that seemingly refuses to integrate or assimilate as part of Western society, yet wishes to stay in their midst. Liberal and left-leaning Europeans and North Americans may be troubled with the in-your-face defiance of radical Islamist youth, but it seems they are infatuated by the apparently anti-establishment stance. This book may help these liberals understand that the anti-Americanism of the radical Islamists has little to do with anti-imperialism. In fact, the anti-Americanism of the Islamist is not about the United States, but reflects their contempt for the liberal social democratic society we have built and its emphasis on liberty and freedom of the individual itself.
My book is an appeal to those of my co-religionists who are chasing the mirage of an Islamic State. I hope they can reflect on the futility of their endeavour and instead focus on achieving the state of Islam. Islamists working for the establishment of an Islamic State are headed in the wrong direction. I hope to convince my fellow Muslims that clinging to mythologies of the past is the formula for a fiasco. I would hope they stand up to the merchants of segregation who have fed us with myths and got us addicted to a forced sense of victimhood. Conventional wisdom in the Muslim world dictates that to move forward, we need to link to our past. Fair enough, but in doing so, we have all but given up on the future, labelling modernity itself as the enemy.
In 2002, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released a scathing report slamming Arab countries for oppressing women, subjugating citizens and failing to provide adequate education.
The report, written by distinguished Arab intellectuals and presented by Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, the former deputy prime minister of Jordan, accused the Arabs of squandering oil wealth and gave them a failing grade on virtually every measurable human index from education to economy, development and democracy. Hunaidi suggested that only Arabs can address what she called "some very scary signals," and she summed up by concluding: "The three main deficits are freedom, gender and knowledge."
Reaction to the UNDP report was predictable. Soon after it appeared in a Canadian newspaper column titled "Tough Report Says Arab World Stuck in Dark Ages," a prominent Egyptian Canadian responded by accusing the newspaper of running a "racist" headline. Instead of reflecting on the report and worrying about its findings, the writer went on the defensive, making the outlandish claim that "there is more freedom of the press in Egypt today than in Canada." It is this inability to face the truth that has become systemic among Muslim opinion leaders. This attitude is cause for serious concern. For it is far more difficult to acknowledge our mistakes than to blame them on a foreign conspiracy.
Acknowledging the unspeakable, to wash some dirty linen in public, is to say to my Muslim brothers and sisters that we are standing naked in the middle of the town square and the whole world is watching. If we do not cleanse ourselves with truth, the stench of our lies will drive us all mad.
My book is also aimed at the ordinary, well-meaning, yet naive non-Muslims of Europe and North America, who are bewildered as they face a community that seemingly refuses to integrate or assimilate as part of Western society, yet wishes to stay in their midst. Liberal and left-leaning Europeans and North Americans may be troubled with the in-your-face defiance of radical Islamist youth, but it seems they are infatuated by the apparently anti-establishment stance. This book may help these liberals understand that the anti-Americanism of the radical Islamists has little to do with anti-imperialism. In fact, the anti-Americanism of the Islamist is not about the United States, but reflects their contempt for the liberal social democratic society we have built and its emphasis on liberty and freedom of the individual itself.
My hope is that Chasing a Mirage may also reach the neo-conservative proponents of the so-called war on terrorism. I hope to make them realize that their warmongering has been the best thing that happened to the Islamist proponents of a worldwide jihad. The invasion of Iraq was manna from heaven for al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could not have asked for anything more. I hope that the conservative Republicans in the United States and their neo-conservative allies in the West will realize that in the battle of ideas, dropping bombs helps the foe, not the friend.
I hope non-Muslims realize that deep inside the soul of all Muslims lives a Rumi, an Averroes, and a Muhammad Ali. Equity and social justice run through every fibre and gene of the Muslim psyche. Poetry, song, and dance are as much a part of our culture as piety, modesty and charity. Challenging authority, even the existence of God himself, has been part of our heritage, and some Muslims have even lived to tell that tale.
I write in the same tradition. I hope my provocative invocations may trigger a spark, an iskra, that may lead us to do a serious self-examination about the direction in which we are heading. Can we end the catastrophic lack of honesty that so many of us have become accustomed to? It is my dream that Muslims, including my naysayers -- and trust me, there are plenty of them -- will read what I have to say and attempt to answer a few questions in the privacy of their solitudes, when they need not be on the defensive and have no fear of being judged.
I hope non-Muslims realize that deep inside the soul of all Muslims lives a Rumi, an Averroes, and a Muhammad Ali. Equity and social justice run through every fibre and gene of the Muslim psyche. Poetry, song, and dance are as much a part of our culture as piety, modesty and charity. Challenging authority, even the existence of God himself, has been part of our heritage, and some Muslims have even lived to tell that tale.
I write in the same tradition. I hope my provocative invocations may trigger a spark, an iskra, that may lead us to do a serious self-examination about the direction in which we are heading. Can we end the catastrophic lack of honesty that so many of us have become accustomed to? It is my dream that Muslims, including my naysayers -- and trust me, there are plenty of them -- will read what I have to say and attempt to answer a few questions in the privacy of their solitudes, when they need not be on the defensive and have no fear of being judged.
- Reprinted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & sons Canada. Copyright Tarek Fatah, 2008.
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