Author calls for analysis in the Muslim religion

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Shortly before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a panel of Muslims appeared on Canadian television to discuss pop-culture images of their religion. One panelist, a spiky-haired spitfire named Irshad Manji, recalled later that the talk quickly turned into a gripefest that Hollywood cast Muslims as fanatics, always swarthy fanatics, "and every other standard line in the victims' canon."
Manji decided to break ranks, declaring that "we Muslims don't give people much incentive to see us as anything but monolithic."
Why were Canada's Muslims mostly mute, she asked, when the Islamic Taliban destroyed the historic Buddha statues in Afghanistan? Why were there no protests? The only response from the other startled panelists, she said, came from a woman who retorted, "Manji, do you know what's happening to Muslims in Palestine?"
Appalling comparison
To Manji, comparing "the intractable politics of the Middle East" with the "woman-pulverizing, kite-banning, execution-enamored Taliban" was appalling. "For all her critical thinking about the West," Manji said, "she wore her unthinking Islam like a head-to-toe burqa. If that was the best a self-proclaimed feminist could do, I shuddered to imagine where we were all headed."
Manji, now 35, decided to launch herself on a quixotic, controversial mission to challenge what she calls the "intellectually atrophied and morally impaired" inwardness -- she deems it a "herd mentality" -- of the Muslim mainstream. She experienced this mentality in the "madressa," or Muslim school, of her immigrant childhood in Vancouver, and broke away to pursue free thinking, with a mix of solo Muslim prayer.
A self-declared "mouthy chick" and "out" lesbian, Manji already had made waves as the provocative host of two TV shows in Ontario, "QueerTelevision" and "Big Ideas." But the flak she got from Muslims and others for those edgy programs was nothing like what she encountered last year, when Random House Canada released "The Trouble With Islam," her scathing critique of Muslim norms.
Hard-hitting analysis
The book, which St. Martin's Press launched in this country Jan. 13, is one of the most hard-hitting analyses of Islam to appear since the Sept. 11 attacks. Manji catalogs the often-brutal repression of women in much of the Muslim world; denounces its widespread anti-Semitism; accuses Western Muslims of being cowed by virulent "desert Islam"; and says her religion, unlike others, treats its scripture "as a document to imitate rather than interpret, suffocating our capacity to think for ourselves."
She implores fellow Muslims to reclaim the buried tradition of "ijtihad, independent reasoning, which she says allows every Muslim "to update his or her religious practice in light of contemporary circumstances."
Centuries ago, "in the guise of protecting the worldwide Muslim nation from disunity," Manji writes, the religion's leading scholars made the momentous decision to freeze debate about doctrine. "The only thing this imperial strategy has achieved," she writes, "is to spawn the most dogged oppression of Muslims by Muslims: the incarceration of interpretation."
A best seller
Manji's book became a stormy best seller. Although many secularized Muslims applauded her forthrightness, she received death threats on her Web site, www.muslim-refusenik.com. She installed bulletproof glass in her Toronto house and now travels with a bodyguard.
American outlets of Barnes & amp; Noble and Borders are selling "The Trouble With Islam," but have declined to host Manji for talks, citing security concerns. All her author appearances in this country will be at independent bookstores.
Roundly condemned
Muslim organizations in Canada have roundly condemned "The Trouble With Islam." A Calgary group, Muslims Against Terrorism, is conducting a series of talks to counter Manji and, in a news release, it thanked Muslim scholars "that they remain calm and did not issue a fatwa against this author, although the author is looking for it."
Sheema Khan, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, wrote in the Literary Review of Canada that Manji relies on anecdotal evidence and "has chosen to ignore completely centuries of vigorous interpretative discussion, diversity and dialogue" on the Koran.
At the same time, Khan conceded that "the dry madressa experience has turned off many Muslim youth, who believe that their faith cannot sustain critical analysis." Khan said Manji "does raise valid questions" about the mistreatment of women, paucity of "ijtihad," and "lazy reliance on victimhood. ... But her abrasive, insulting style -- meant to provoke -- will only repel those she is trying to influence."
Manji, in a phone interview, said her speaking appearances suggest otherwise. "Young Muslims will turn to me to say, 'We need your voice. If the religion doesn't open up, we are leaving it.' They are modern hybrids, hybrids like me, and they want oxygen let into the faith."