If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

by Carla Power

He leaned forward as though about to share a confidence. “You know what these Islamic reform movements are really for?” “What?” I smiled. “They’re for Western-educated Muslims, to convince them that Islam can also deliver what the West has. It’s to tell them, ‘Oh, they laugh at you? Well, you have the power to laugh at them.’ But Islam is not like that. “Islamic movements, they think they can get a reward in this world,” he sighed. “If the state and power are so important, why are the Prophets so important? Ninety-nine percent of them didn’t have any power. Ibrahim didn’t have a state. Jesus Christ didn’t!” As for political Muslims, fond of talking about Medina as the first Islamic State, and the Constitution of Medina as the ideal basis for contemporary politics? Misguided, to his mind. The Prophet hadn’t wanted to leave Mecca in the first place: he was forced to leave, since he was unable to practice his faith. And when he got to what would become Medina, it was in search of freedom of religious worship, not power. Power was thrust upon him. “He did not especially want to run a state,” explained the Sheikh. “But when he got to Medina, he had to organize it properly.” One website proclaims the Constitution of Medina “the first written constitution in human history” and claims it laid the “practical foundation of democracy.” Such parallels suggest a profound insecurity, he suggested. “Many Muslims became influenced by Western ideas of the state, and they want to find it in...