ISBN NUMBER: 0 95 133495 6
NUMBER OF PAGES: 240
PRICE: $24.50
AUTHOR: Anwar Shaikh
PUBLISHER: The Principality Publishers, P.O. Box 918, Cardiff CF2 4YP (UK)
REVIEWER(S): Akbar Ahmed Feroz in Britain’s largest Urdu/English Weekly Nation of May 3-9, 1996
Anwar Shaikh’s latest book, Faith and Deception is highly damaging to Islam. Had the Muslim scholars taken up his challenge as presented in his previous works, “Eternity” and “ISLAM – The Arab National Movement”, the need for this book would have been superfluous; but the Muslim intelligentsia ignored him on the pretext that the Koran does not allow debate with ignorants. This attitude was also fueled by their desire to silence him through a process of disregard and neglect. So unique is the philosophical and scholarly magnitude of Faith and Deception that its author cannot be labeled as an ignoramus.
The Muslim scholars have found solace in linking Anwar Shaikh with Salman Rushdie, who is just a novelist, having no scholarly background whatever; he is no more than an Insulter of the Prophet. Anwar Shaikh is the first person who has not only challenged the validity of Islam but also presented an alternative spiritual code consistent with reason and liberty. There is not a word of disrespect in his works to insult the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). In fact he admires him as a great man.
Anwar Shaikh totally rejects the doctrine of revelation and preaches that man is a rational being and needs no divine guidance.
According to Shaikh, this universe is mysterious by nature and the underlying mystery acts as a fillip to arouse curiosity leading to knowledge, which is the exact antithesis of blind faith. Discussing his point of view in Faith and Deception, the author argues that life starts with Free Will, which eventually raises animal to the lofty status of man, desiring to be free and conscious of his human rights. Anwar Shaikh has propounded a new philosophy of Free Will which has intelligence and morality as its components. He believes that man is man only when he can exercise his free will: not only his happiness and development of personality are related to the exercise of free will, but the secret of his future life also lies in the operation of free will. As a continuation of this discussion, he argues that man has the potential to become divine. Thus he propounds his philosophy: man is God and God is man, (Nauzbillah) but insists that the realization of this truth depends on the exercise of one’s free will with rational and moral precision. This is what leads him to pronounce that Faith is a form of deception because it opposes the exercise of free will by inducing opposition to reason, morality and free thinking.
Shaikh believes that man is endowed with the Urge of Dominance, which goads him to be acknowledged as superior to others and the extreme form of this urge instigates him to be treated and worshipped as God by his fellow men. This is how, the aspirant deprives other people of their chance to become divine by imposing his own divinity on them through the stratagem of revelation, i.e. prophethood.
As I feel obliged to make this report about Faith and Deception, the Muslim intellectuals have the duty to meet Anwar Shaikh’s challenge without resorting to lame excuses. I believe that Islam is a rational religion. This is the reason that it does not admit violence in religious matters (11:255): instead it advocates peaceful argument to vindicate the truth (11:105). I must remind the Muslim thinkers and priests that Anwar Shaikh is a serious challenger to the veracity of Islam.
Equating him with Rushdie and his likes, is a mockery of the truth and proof of escapism.
I must add the real subject of Faith and Deception is an inquiry into the mysterious nature of the universe with a view to establishing the Truth and the criticism of the Koran is only supplementary. Yet it is hair-raising and requires an immediate and rational response from the Muslim scholars. Violence shall tarnish the image of Islam and may prove highly detrimental to its cause.
Muslim organizations have the duty to rise to Anwar Shaikh’s challenge. They cannot sweep it under the carpet. If they do, as they have done in the past, they shall not qualify as the guardians of Islam but exactly the opposite.
It is also the need of the hour to expose those lobbies or groups who may be behind the scene of such anti-Islam publications.
Courtesy, The NATION.
