Chasing a Mirage

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 though the ages and resulting inwar 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 inflictinga 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 s 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.