Tarek Fatah

Chasing a mirage by Tarek FatahThe Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State

"Morality is doing what is right, regardless what we are told;

Religious dogma is doing what we are told, no matter what is right."

Home Reviews and News Links About The Author Feedback

A cri de couer... succinctly yet with power

Cabbagetown' s Tarek Fatah begins his cri de coeur by setting out his citizen of the world credentials succinctly yet with power: "I am an Indian born in Pakistan; a Punjabi born in Islam; an immigrant in Canada with a Muslim consciousness, grounded in a Marxist youth. I am one of Salman Rushdie's many Midnight's Children: we were snatched from the cradle of a great civilization and made permanent refugees, sent in search of an oasis that turned out to be a mirage. I am in pain, a living witness to how dreams of hope and enlightenment can be turned into a nightmare of despair and failure ... I write as a Muslim whose ancestors were Hindu. My religion, Islam is rooted in Judaism, while my Punjabi culture is tied to that of the Sikhs. Yet I am told by Islamists that without shedding this multifaceted heritage, if not outrightly rejecting it, I cannot be a true Muslim."

And so it goes in Fatah's Chasing a Mirage:The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (Wiley, 410 pages, $31.95). The co-founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and the host of Vision TV's weekly The Muslim Chronicle sums up his inclusive, holistic understanding of the Quran's teachings, in opposition to the Islamic fundamentalism, of political and religious, that he has spent most of his adult life campaigning against it. Chasing a Mirage is dedicated to Benazir Bhutto and Daniel Pearl: "a Muslim and a Jew, victims of terrorism."

- Dan Smith

To read Toronto Star's review of Tarek Fatah's book, click here.

 

"Chasing a Mirage"

by

T A R E K   F A T A H

 

Published by

The Wiley published "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

 

 

Advance praise for Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State

 

Bob Rae - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

 

"Tarek Fatah 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.

 

 

Senator Mobina Jaffer - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

 

"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.

 

Pervez Hoodboy - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

 

"This work of courage and daring needs to be read widely."

- PERVEZ HOODBHOY

  Professor, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

 

 

Janice Gross Stein - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"...a must read for anyone who cares about these issues."

- JANICE GROSS STEIN
  Director, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

 

"Tarek Fatah rightly explains that the decline of the world’s Muslims does not come from the absence of a puritanical Islamic state."

- HUSAIN HAQQANI
 
 Professor, Boston University/Co-Chair - Islam & Democracy Project at Hudson Institute, D.C.

 

 

Michael Coren - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"Fatah writes with a startling knowledge of and empathy for his religion and its adherents."

- MICHAEL COREN
 
Columnist, Toronto SUN.

 

Taj Hashmi - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"This fascinating work by brave and brilliant Tarek Fatah is simultaneously thought-provoking, instructive and enlightening for laymen and scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim."

- TAJ HASHMI
  Professor, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu.

 

 

Farish A. Noor - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"the author reminds us that the canonisation of Islamist political thinking... can only be described in present-day terms as Fascist and intolerant."

- FARISH A. NOOR
  Professor, Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin.

 

Ishtiaq Ahmed - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"Tarek Fatah shows through painstaking, meticulous research that the sooner Muslims rid themselves of the  deadweight of centuries of tribal feuds in the name of true Islam the greater will be their chances of getting out of   the rut of obscurantism and fanaticism."

- Ishtiaq Ahmed
  
Professor of Political Science, University of Stockholm, Sweden.

 

 

Farooq Tahir - testimony for "Chasing a mirage" by Tarek Fatah

"Chasing a Mirage is an extremely valuable contribution to the fight by progressive Muslims against Islamist fascism."

- Farooq Tariq
  Secretary General, Pakistan Labour Party.

Order your copy:

 


 

MUKTA © 2008 | All Rights Reserved