Tarek Fateh: Beyond Islamophobia and Hindutva

By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam 27 June 2023 Tarek Fatah passed away on 24 April, 2023 in Canada. He was a Pakistani Canadian, but preferred to call himself as Indian whose parents had migrated to Pakistan. He was quite critical of almost everything related to Islam. Given his trajectory of active politics and activism in Pakistan, he was imprisoned as he recounted many times. This imprisonment made him bitter and ultimately, he left for Canada. His Pakistan bashing seems to have started from this phase of his migration to Canada. This bashing of Pakistan later on evolved to Islam bashing as he considered Pakistan and Islam as synonymous. Pakistan was founded in the name of Islam so he wanted it to act according to the Principles of Islam. The masses who migrated to Pakistan also believed in these assumptions because the cause of Islam was trumpeted in the creation of Pakistan. Tarek Fatah ----- The religious triumphalists who believed Pakistan to be another Medina, were disillusioned once they migrated and started to experience ‘new Medina.’ Other defenders of Pakistan who did or could not migrate but always longed for Pakistan, witnessing the mess they put up their defence stating that Pakistan is a mosque but its Imam is wrong but that does not render the mosque obsolete. One needs to try to change the Imam (meaning leadership). However, the experience has shown that the Imams have destroyed the mosque that too beyond repair. Tarek Fateh being humiliated in Pakistan and not being accepted by the Muslims faced existential crisis whose catharsis he founded in joining the fringe Hindutva groups that offered him the necessary air time and platform to spread Islamophobia. The anti-Muslim forces certainly wanted someone Muslim and a Pakistani that would serve double purpose of Islam and Pakistan bashing. They wanted to reinforce Islamophobia among the masses and Tarek Fateh came quite handy. His weekly program Fateh Ka Fatwa was a manifestation of how media and a Muslim can be used to spread further and reinforce the stereotypes about Muslims among the masses. Fateh himself took an active part in accomplishing the task of Islamophobia and his understanding of issues could never be counted as progressive. He did not belong either to the ilk of progressive or ex Muslims. To situate him in these categories is not justified. Muslim community rejected him while fringe Hindutva elements used him to accomplish their goals of evolving Islamophobia in India. He was not mourned by any except by his family and close friends. Muslim community had discarded him from their ranks as he was denied even the burial space as if he was an apostate. The Hindutva groups just used him as they did not consider him as their own. However, in this whole cacophony of noise his academic contribution in the form of books was pushed into oblivion. Muslims have this problem that if they reject anyone, they see no positives in him and if they accept anyone, they indulge in Hero worship overlooking all his flaws. This is the Ghulu (exaggeration) that Muslim community has not yet overcome, although Quran time and again informs Muslims to opt for a path of moderation. He has written two books The Jew is Not My Enemy and Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, I have read the later work as a part of writing my M.Phil dissertation. This book still needs to be seriously engaged as it exposes the flaws that Fateh terms as Mirage when it comes to the establishment of Islamic state. Chasing A Mirage raises some factual questions about the struggle and movements that conceive as the zenith of Islam being synonymous with the creation of an Islamic state. Tarek observes that there are two streams of Islamic practice after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), one believes in strengthening the state of Islam and other struggles to establish an Islamic state. He states that Islamists working for the establishment of an Islamic State are headed in the wrong direction. While building his argument, Tarek draws from Quran, Prophetic practice and history of Islam, informing the reader that even the five pillars of Islam which form a Muslim covenant with the creator do not even hint at the creation of an Islamic state. One of the first contemporary critics of Islamic state, Al Abdel al Razik of Egypt, also drew and based his criticism on such arguments. All the movements and groups striving for establishing an Islamic state, do so by referring to the constitution of Medina, but Tarek criticises it too by saying that it was never replicated after conquest of Mecca. He does not understand the fact of Itmaam e Hujjat (Displaying Irrefutable Proof by Prophets). After the Itmaam e Hujjat is complete, if the people reject the message of Prophet, they are punished by God. The revealed books are full of stories of punishments of communities who rejected their Prophets. In case of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), being the seal of Prophets, the rejectors were punished through the swords of Muslims. This concept is quite important to understand, the difference between Prophet Muhammad’s stance in Mecca, Medina and after conquest of Mecca. Then the book discusses about apostasy, working of the Muslim state, how the state borrowed a number of concepts from others including Roman and Byzantine empires, like Caliph Umar (RA), who opted for Byzantine administrative model. It has a lot of details about the pragmatic Muslim approach of running a state, that mostly went against the values of Islam. Tarek, is all for pluralism, tolerance, co-existence and shared practices among communities. He believes that Islamic State was never a reality and calling Muslims towards establishing it in our contemporary times, is indeed a futile exercise. Islamic State according to Tarek is discriminatory, non-democratic and curtailing freedom. He has given numerous proofs to back up his logic. Chasing a Mirage, when read seriously certainly raffles few feathers. Its arguments are strong, if not academic, because unlike other scholarly critiques of Islamic State, most of the refutation is based on the working of Islamic State, not on its theoretical foundations. However, this work still has not been engaged well or even refuted by the proponents of Islamic state and it will keep Tarek alive for a long time. Anyone, who is interested in the critique of the Islamic state cannot miss out on this work. ------- M.H.A. Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir URL: https://newageislam.com/muslims-islamophobia/tarek-fateh-islamophobia-hindutva/d/130082 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism