Letters to a Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash

245 pages

Forget that Omar Saif Ghobash looks a bit like George Clooney, at least on his jacket flap. What he has to say is of vital importance to both Muslims and non-Muslims. Every few months, we read about a horrific act of terrorism somewhere in the world, and it comes as no surprise if the perpetrator is revealed to be a young Muslim male. In the aftermath, occasionally a Muslim association denies that the perpetrator represents the values of Islam. But no one ever talks about what the values of Islam actually are — which makes it challenging for a Westerner to parse out how, precisely, the majority of Muslims differ philosophically from the violent fringe. What Islam stands for — and how younger Muslims can live peaceably in the modern world — are some of the subjects Ghobash addresses in Letters to a Young Muslim, a book that is framed as letters to his teenage son, Saif. The book gives a philosophical but grounded sketch of the larger Muslim world, which is useful in understanding the turmoil that the Middle East faces today.

Ghobash is the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Russia; he is the son of an Arab father and a Russian mother. When he was six, his father was shot and killed by a terrorist in what may have been a case of mistaken identity. The tragic incident understandably haunted Ghobash through his childhood and his adult life. As a child, when he questioned his father’s friends about his father’s death, or about the Muslim faith, he was often silenced. Ghobash grew up feeling engulfed by silence, and he eventually began to question why he must stay quiet.

As a young man, Ghobash searched in vain for role models. He tried to reconstruct an image of his father with the few bare facts he knew, along with the varying descriptions of those who had known his father. Ghobash draws a powerful analogy between his quest for an idealized father figure, which in the end was a mental construct, and Muslims who base their lives on the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad and on stories about him, all of which were collected by his followers after his death in the 7th century, and at best provide an incomplete picture of his life.

Ghobash writes that there are 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today, and they are spread out over many countries. It may come as a surprise to some readers that 20 million Muslims live in Russia alone. A practicing Muslim, Ghobash asks his fellow Muslims not to be afraid to ask questions or to accrue knowledge from distant lands. Of his father, Ghobash writes: “He pursued an education. Using an Islamic turn of phrase, he ‘went as far as China for knowledge.’ ” By contrast, he laments the state of ignorance he sees in the Muslim world today.

Ghobash exhorts his son and those of his generation not to dismiss individualism as a Western concept and to understand that they commit no offense if they choose to think for themselves — something many Muslim clerics would rather not have them do. As much as the concept of individualism is woven into the fabric of Western life, Ghobash concedes that it is all but meaningless for Muslims. For them, the community (ummah) is all important. Problems occur when “aggressive clerics” use Friday prayers to influence the community through sermons that freely mix religion and politics, repeatedly assert that Islam is under attack, and rouse Muslims to fight back.

“I also see that these clerics lead strangely frustrated lives locked in a world of narrow hate and anger,” Ghobash writes. “Otherwise, how is it possible that some of these clerics have spent decades theorizing and debating the exact, almost mathematical, conditions for waging violent jihad? What would make a person of sound mind dedicate their lives to developing theories on when it is religiously permissible, or obligatory, to go out and kill others?” Ghobash asks his son to be wary of those who offer easy answers while not allowing anyone to question them — this may be a tactic to grab authority and power.

It is interesting that Ghobash has the courage to take down some of the very pillars that fundamentalist clerics lean on. He denies that Islam is under attack or that violence brings “good things in its wake.” He also challenges that killing others, and being killed in the process, is the ultimate sacrifice, as fundamentalists claim. A greater sacrifice, he asserts, is to meet life’s complexities. Ghobash movingly encourages younger Muslims to tackle modern life rather than take a violent shortcut to what Muslims believe is a pleasurable afterlife.

With terrorism having sadly become a fact of life, this book ought to be read widely by Muslims (though Ghobash tells us that an astounding 70 percent are illiterate), and by the rest of us. Reading this book is one way to engage in dismantling an illconceived clash of civilizations and to consider how to prevent it from becoming the defining conflict of our time. — Priyanka Kumar