Chasing a mirage : the tragic illusion of an Islamic state / Tarek Fatah.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [371]-386) and index.

Pt. 1. The Illusion -- Ch. 1. Politics and Theology of Islamic States -- Ch. 2. Pakistan - Failure of an Islamic State -- Ch. 3. Saudi Arabia - Sponsor of Islamic States -- Ch. 4. Iran - The Islamic State -- Ch. 5. Palestine - Future Islamic State? -- Pt. 2. The Genesis -- Ch. 6. The Prophet is Dead -- Ch. 7. Medina - The Politics of the Rightly Guided Caliphs -- Ch. 8. Damascus - Islam's Arab Empire -- Ch. 9. Cordoba - Islam's European Venture -- Ch. 10. Baghdad - Islam Embraces the Persians -- Pt. 3. The Consequences -- Ch. 11. Sharia - God's Law or Man's Flaw? -- Ch. 12. Jihad - Permanent War or Continuous Struggle? -- Ch. 13. Hijab - Islamic Piety or Political Islam? -- Ch. 14. The Islamist Agenda in the West -- Afterword / Husain Haqqani.

"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." "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 through the ages and resulting in bloodshed among Muslim brothers. The other Islam was spiritual, which unleased 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 inflicting a crushing defeat of the spirit of Islam."--BOOK JACKET.