Book Review
Chasing A
Mirage – The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State.
- Author:
Tarek Fatah
-
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.,
Canada
-
Reviewed
By: Javed I.
Chaudry
Dear Rafi Sahib and other
FoTH Friends:
Ever since my book review
appeared on FoTH website, there seems to exist a
constant squabble as to who has read the book in
its entirety, or even read it at all. It is
obvious that certain individuals are unable to
accept the fact that after having read the book
some one can possibly disagree with its contents.
Rafi Sahib: You appear to be
bent upon determining whether or not certain
people who have endorsed my review had read the
book. Have you tried to determine the same about
those who oppose my review? You appear to be
reacting to the psychological effect which was
created for this very purpose through many posts
from the faithful of a group operating on partisan
lines (almost as a cult) rather than the
scholarship of the subject matter.
New books are coming to the
book stores almost daily, lots of reviews are
written, published, distributed and read. Some
reviews are in favor of a book, some are not. But
I have not seen the immature reaction such as
challenging to a debate (what’s next - a gun
battle at OK Coral?), counting and determining who
has read the book and how much of it? Is this a
Grade 12 class assignment on book review? Is any
one going to grade the members of this forum
according to their class submissions? Let’s not
waste our time in trivialities.
[ At Amazon.com/ca websites,
newspapers and magazines there are thousands of
book reviews, some reviewers have given 4 stars
and others one star to the same book – I have not
heard of any authors, their family members or
friends going after the reviewers demanding for
the justifications or asking questions about what
percentage of the total pages were read? ]
Those who like counting
(sheep or whatever), should be counting votes in
connection with running their organization on
democratic principles just what Dr. Qazi is
alluding to in his post #46 .
What I gather from Virk
Sahib’s posts is that he is not really placing any
emphasis on who approves or disapproves what book,
why or why not etc. I think, many readers have
obviously missed the underscored concern to which
he has tried to draw our attention. He has a
genuine apprehension about how the history is
recorded, preserved and then used decades and
centuries later for socio-political analysis long
after the history writers and the people of the
era have gone. The incident of September 11, 2001
and the consequential development of
socio-political norms have a major negative impact
on Islam and Muslims as the Muslims are being held
responsible for this incident. This seems to be
getting recorded as a historical truth along with
many other claims made by certain powerful and
influential political groups. [please see Mr.
Virk’s reference to Dr. Qazi’s quote from Mr.
Fatah’s book (Post #49)]
As he has repeatedly made it
clear, Mr.Virk is not a religious man and does not
subscribe to any organized religion. At best, he
is a cultural Muslim since he was born to a Muslim
family and most of his relatives and many friends
are Muslims. But as a responsible citizen of the
modern world, Mr.Virk is quite genuinely troubled
by an incident for which no proof has been
provided to expose the real perpetrators. It has
been successfully launched in the world such that
it has opened a flood gate of books and newspaper
articles attacking Islam and Muslims. The incident
of 9/11 appears to have declared an open season on
Muslims that every Tom, Dick and Harry feels they
have liberty to attack Islam and the Muslims.
The fact that 19 Arab young
men’s pictures were splashed on the front pages of
newspapers within 48 hours of September 11 is not
a proof of the statement, it is merely an exhibit
submitted by the American administration. Sadly,
many including very intelligent people have
accepted the exhibits as a proof.
Most importantly, Mr.Virk is
attempting to point out that the inferences drawn
by many writers using falsely recorded history are
only as valuable as the basis of an argument it is
built upon as its foundation.
In the end, I would like to
say what I had stated two posts ago that I will
not like to contribute on this subject in this
thread any more as I have nothing more to add to
what I have already said.
Regards,
Javed I. Chaudry
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Family of the Heart