Evolution or Revolution?

ISIS is squarely situated in the realm of modern utopian movements that are doomed to fail. The defining feature of these movements is captured by the British political philosopher, John Gray, when he says: "The use of inhumane methods to achieve impossible ends is the essence of revolutionary utopianism."

In resorting to systematic terror to achieve its ends, ISIS is not alone, nor can it be considered the most notorious member of the macabre club it has joined. As Gray mentions elsewhere, "Nineteenth-century anarchists such as Nechayev and Bakunin, the Bolsheviks Lenin and Trotsky, anti-colonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, the regimes of Mao and Pol Pot, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Italian Red Guard in the 1980s, radical Islamic movements and neoconservative groups mesmerized by fantasies of creative destruction -these highly disparate elements are at one in their faith in the liberating power of violence. In this they are all disciples of the Jacobins."

At this critical juncture in human affairs, we must raise our voices, and more importantly our pens, to reject the sort of utopian fantasies peddled by these and similar ideologies. The only meaningful changes in human affairs are those that start when people change themselves and then apply the same techniques upon which that inner transformation is based towards working for change in society. Namely, patience, acceptance of human limitations, contentment with and trusting in the wisdom of the Divine Decree, and then ever so slowly working towards becoming a changed person -one prayer, one invocation, one supplication, one day of fasting, one page of the Qur'an, one instance of charity, one act of service at a time. In this process of evolution there is no room for revolution.