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
It was some years ago, a
friend invited me to attend a session by a
Pakistani “Islamic Scholar”. It was in Toronto.
There were about 30 people in my friend’s
basement. Every one was sitting on the floor,
except the scholar, who was sitting on a sofa, all
by himself, assuming a “superior” spot.
The “scholar” was giving
sermons about the virtues and goodness of Islam
and Muslims in particular. Most of us have heard
such sermons from grade one. So, what the scholar
was saying was not only repetitive, but outright
boring at its best and, at least in my opinion,
false at it worst.
I would not accept the
“slavery” of this bunch of people, sitting on the
floor, and just let this scholar say whatever he
wanted to. I walked to the sofa, and sat next to
the scholar. He did not seem to appreciate my
gesture.
With the scholar I started
a dialogue.
It
has always been my view that human is only that
person who follows just one code of conduct. That
is indeed, the human rights. In spite of
exceptions I have never [rarely ever] seen in my
life any one follow that conduct. Therefore I did
not believe that there exists in this world a
Muslim. When I said this to the scholar, he jumped
to the roof, not accepting my observation, of
course. His contempt was obvious.
So, my point is that those people, now writing
books, about Islam, about Muslims, are they
themselves the followers of Islam? Indeed, are
they themselves Muslims? Same questions I must ask
rest of the people participating in forum
discussion.
Most people in religion, whichever it is, are only
accidentally the followers of that
religion. What an achievement!
How human are we?
I
think that time is long over due that religions
should be abandoned. Imagine how different the
world will be in that case. The evil in human will
still invent something to oppress, rob and kill
the weak. But at least there will be no religion.
18 July 2008
Send questions or
comments to
Family of the Heart