My Faith Is a Mess

Fiery author Irshad Manji takes aim at Islam, the religion she loves but believes is full of hatred today.

BY: Interview by Deborah Caldwell

Great
1
2
3
4
5

Rate

Irshad Manji, 35, has been called the "nonfiction Salman Rushdie" and "Osama Bin Laden's worst nightmare"-and she takes both as compliments. Her book, The Trouble With Islam, was released in the United States a few weeks ago after making waves for months in her native Canada, and also in Germany. For her views, Manji says she is facing threats on her life: her apartment in Toronto is outfitted with bullet-proof glass.

Manji says her faith has become infested with hatred -- of Jews, of women, of gays, of the West. And instead of confronting these issues directly and openly, most Western Muslims -- the only Muslims with the freedom to debate -- have instead retreated.
Manji's questioning started when she was a little girl. It reached a critical point, when, at the age of 14, she had it out with her madressa teacher after she demanded he provide evidence of the "so-called Jewish conspiracy" against Islam. He ordered her to shut up or get out. So Manji fled.

She recently talked with Beliefnet senior producer Deborah Caldwell.

Let's talk about this issue of literalism in reading the Qur'an. Why do you think that is the way most Muslims read their holy book? And why is that a problem?

Let me start this way: I completely acknowledge that every faith has its share of literalists. I don't deny that for a second. What I am pointing out is that only within Islam today is literalism the mainstream. The reason it is mainstream is that we Muslims, even in the West, are routinely raised to believe that because the Qur'an comes after the Torah and the Bible, it is the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God's will, not given to being interpreted or analyzed, never mind questioned. And this is dangerous because when--not if--abuse happens under the banner of our faith, most of us, including those of us who are "well-educated professionals" have no clue how to debate, dissent, revise, or reform because we have not been introduced to the virtues of critical thinking.

But I thought Islam had a long history of critical thinking.

Ah, now this is where I might respectfully dispute this premise. We absolutely have a history of critical thinking and obviously I go into it in the book-it's the tradition of itjihad. But it's not very long lived. In fact, it's quite short lived. It existed roughly between the 9th and the 11th centuries. And most Muslims don't even know about it.

Continued on page 2: »