irshaddering thoughts

The best Eid gift ever

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Oct 02, 2008

“Happy Eid” from Turkey 

This week, Muslims the world over are observing Eid ul-Fitr, the celebratory end to our month of fasting. On this occasion, as a kid, I remember being served kheer (a type of rice pudding), scooping it up with puri (a type of fried bread) and hoping to bite into a Canadian dollar (a type of esteemed currency). For me, the Eid adventure of fishing for coins without choking on them was gift enough. I figured if Allah wanted me dead, She could have easily arranged it.

Similarly, if God wanted me to shut up once and for all, this year’s Eid gift wouldn’t be what it is. Infinitely more valuable than money. Priceless, you might say.

It’s a defense of the freedom to criticize Islam — and every other religion.

Today, in Washington, several groups will hold a press conference to launch the Coalition to Defend Free Speech. Among its leading members is the non-partisan Freedom House, which has supported Egyptian democracy activists and others for years. A quote from their press release:

“Freedom House is part of a new coalition seeking to safeguard freedom of speech and freedom of expression from an international campaign that aims to limit and in some cases criminalize criticism of religion. This campaign, led by countries such as Pakistan and Egypt, regularly proposes resolutions at the United Nations that would prohibit ‘defamation of religion,’ in effect curtailing speech that some find offensive and stifling religious debate and discussion.”

Since Islamic countries are spearheading the UN effort to quash religious dissent, you can bet that many Muslims will label the Coalition to Defend Free Speech an “Islamophobic” conspiracy. Try telling that to the International Quranic Center, one the Coalition’s founders.

Then there’s this inconvenient truth: Lack of freedom restricts inter-faith understanding by killing opportunities for conversation, replacing inquiry with inquisition. That’s a conspiracy alright. A conspiracy of silence, not of Islamophobes.

Above all, criminalizing criticism of Islam hurts Muslims first and foremost. It stifles our consciences. It also legitimizes other forms of authoritarian abuse against us. Paula Schriefer, advocacy director at Freedom House, explains:

“The movement to limit speech that is deemed critical or ‘blasphemous’ to religions has been pushed most strongly by self-appointed governments of Muslim-majority countries, and their citizens by far have been the most victimized by measures to restrict their speech and thought. By limiting the very ability of people to raise questions, ideas and opinions, one undermines not only freedom of expression, but intellectual, academic and religious freedoms as well.”

Sing it loud, sing it proud, sister. God knows I did in this blog entry several months ago. Glad that we’re starting to hear each other.

In that spirit, I’ll be contacting the Coalition to see how Project Ijtihad and the Moral Courage Project can join this campaign. The European Foundation for Democracy, with which I’m a scholar, is another prime candidate for membership.

And you? If you want to participate in the mission, subscribe to my mailing list and sign the anti-death threat petition. Both can be done for free. Both should be done for freedom.

Meanwhile, let me use my freedom of speech to wish you Eid Mubarak not only in Arabic, but also in the languages of three secular countries. Bayramınız Kutlu Olsun (Turkey). Selamat Idul Fitri (Indonesia). How many bowls of kheer do I need to down to cough up a Loonie, eh? (Canada).

What would Tony Blair do?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 22, 2008

Irshad with Cherie Booth Blair, human rights lawyer and wife of former British PM Tony Blair

Almost nine months have passed and a baby is now born in Britain. His name is Sharia.

Back in February, Rowan Williams — the esteemed Archbishop of Canterbury — suggested that elements of Sharia are desirable in Britain for the sake of social cohesion. His words planted a seed that legitimized the quiet dream to bring British Sharia to life.

Well, the seed has born fruit. According to Abul Taher of The Times of London, “The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.”

You’re already asking me what I think of this development. Read my blog entry of almost nine months ago, when I posed three questions to Williams — questions focusing on the rights of Muslim women, even under a voluntary Sharia. He never responded, although the UK’s Independent newspaper cited my views as part of the debate.

The debate goes on. Click here to read what others are saying.

The one opinion I’d love to hear is that of former British prime minister Tony Blair. In the twilight of office, Blair found his voice as a defender of ideals such as freedom of conscience, individual liberty and universal human rights.

He took a tough line with Muslim radicals who blamed the West for all of Islam’s ills and with Muslim moderates in the West who refused to use their freedoms of thought and expression.

Since leaving office, he’s launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. On its website, you’ll see an endorsement from none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury. Surf the site further and you land on a page where Blair promotes a lecture delivered by the Archbishop. The topic: faith and human rights.

Merely by having the Right Reverend Rowan Williams grace his website, I don’t assume that Blair toes the clerical line. The two men may very well differ on this matter.

I pray that this is so. Blair has become an eloquent champion of the West’s better angels — the very values that highlight our shared humanity. He ought to ally with the champions of Islam’s better angels: reform-minded Muslims. We understand that once it acquires the force of law, Sharia turns faith into dogma.

It was faithful, reform-minded Muslim women who defeated the proposal to introduce Sharia law in Canada. This time, the colonials have something to teach the British empire.

We call on the Hon. Tony Blair to help us.

The great disappearing act

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 18, 2008

It’s incredible how fast foreign policy has been flung to the sidelines in this US presidential campaign. Ironically, the great disappearing act has happened in exactly the week that a group calling itself Islamic Jihad murdered 10 people, including civilians, outside the US embassy in Sana’a.  The attackers meant to kill Americans. Instead, they got fellow Muslims.

We all know why foreign policy now matters less: It’s the economy, stupid.

Doubtless, the lies that led to today’s stock market crisis need to be confronted. But so do the lies that allow attempted assaults on US diplomats and ordinary Muslims in their midst.

I was in Yemen two years ago to shoot my documentary, Faith Without Fear. My crew and I wanted to meet graduates of a much-touted government initiative to de-program jihadists. Yemeni authorities handed us their “biggest success”: Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard.

Was he truly re-habilitated? Here’s a slice of my interview with him:

I was a personal guard of Osama Bin Laden.

Irshad: How do you view him today?

It’s a very sensitive question. However, I’ll respond honestly. I wish that I did not have to leave Sheikh Osama, not even for one hour… I have committed myself to protect Muslims everywhere. Jihad was practised by the Prophet himself, and by his companions as well. And some of them fell as martyrs. So the Prophet and his companions are our role models.

Irshad: Many of the Muslims I have spoken with would argue that what you have just said is not just a misinterpretation, but even an abuse of Islam.

I would like you to ask them this question again and ask them what they would do if their women were raped, their children were slaughtered and they were forced out of their homes. I am sure you would have a very different answer.

Irshad: Would you be proud to have [your son] Habib become a martyr?

It would be my wish for him to die as a martyr because if I don’t fall as a martyr, then he will be able to intercede for his family with God.

Now, I have no idea if this guy participated in the latest assault on the US embassy in Sana’a, but you can see why I wouldn’t be shocked if he did.

The bottom line: America has a lot of work to do with its Muslim friends — Yemen, Pakistan and Indonesia, to name but a few.

Since the spring, foreign policy has driven major decisions made by both campaigns: for example, Obama’s trip to Iraq and Europe, followed by his choice of a running mate in Joe Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Likewise, you couldn’t get McCain to shut up about the surge in Iraq, the threat of Iran and the Russian invasion of lil’ Georgia.

Of course, a serious foreign policy discussion can’t be conducted on the campaign trail. But a vetting of who takes foreign policy more seriously can.

And it must, for the sake of the our economy if not our security.

The uses and abuses of lipstick

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 11, 2008

Twenty-four hours before the anniversary of 9/11,  a specious debate has been raging in America.  Forensically dissected is Barack Obama’s statement that you can slap lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

The “pig” is John McCain’s economic record. It’s not a  reference to his running mate, Sarah Palin, who has described herself as a pitbull with lipstick.

Still, the Republican campaign is expertly fanning small-town resentment against urban elites to turn this into another culture war. Pitbulls, indeed.

Amid all that noise, I’ve learned of an attempt to make Sharia law friendlier for women. Problem is, this might be an effort to put lipstick on a legal pig.

No doubt, reactionary types will accuse me of having called Islam a “pig.” To these McCain-aping Muslims, I say: No way. No how. No chance. You’re not going to Palinize me.

Islam is a divinely inspired faith. Sharia is human interpretation of divinely inspired words. The world-renowned scholar, Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, attests that Sharia law and Islamic faith are not the same. Read his latest book, Islam and the Secular State, and you’ll appreciate the professor’s point that Sharia, when encoded in law, often betrays the better angels of Islam.

So I have to wonder: Does any move to make Sharia law less unfair only amount to cosmetic change? Is the real journey to justice launched by avoiding religious law altogether and encouraging personal belief to be exactly that — personal?

Given the complexity of the issue, I don’t know the answer just yet. But I’m willing to ask the question, out loud.

Judge for yourself. Here’s the news story about an attempt by Muslims in Britain to update Sharia law so that married women have rights equal to those of their husbands. Let me know what you think.

And if you’re going to send me a threat, for God’s sake show a sense of humor. Write it in lipstick.

What the…?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 05, 2008

It’s not legislation. It’s not a nation-wide demonstration. But it’s a humble start in the dissent department.

This is what it looks like when Pakistanis speak out against barbarism in their backyard. By “barbarism,” I’m referring to the crime of burying women alive, which I blogged about a few days ago.

On a related note, the book that I’ve been blogging about lately — The Jewel of Medina — contains a story of how the Prophet Muhammad challenged this disgusting anti-woman custom. Written in the voice of a very young A’isha (Muhammad’s second wife), the passage reads as follows:

“I’d known Muhammad all my life. He held me in his arms just moments after I was born, blessing me with a special prayer as I’d flailed and rooted against his chest in search of a nipple, hungry from the start. He’d saved my life, my parents told me, by convincing my father to break the Meccan law. Too few boys were being born that year, so the [tribal] leaders had decided that all newborn girls should be buried alive in the desert. “Are not girls also the creation of al-Lah?” Muhammad had said to my father, who wept with relief.

In Muhammad’s eyes, girls and women were more than just chattel for men to own and disown depending on their whims. They were valuable in God’s eyes, and in his…”

So here’s the irony, or tragedy, or both: Despite portraying Islam’s prophet in glowing light, this novel gets pulled from publication for potentially offending Muslims. But those pious dudes in rural Pakistan who suffocate women under mounds of dirt, proving themselves offensive, are still free.

As the Prophet might ask, “What the fig?”

It takes a global village

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 01, 2008

As First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a book called It Takes a Village. A mother and world-traveler, she understood that raising children well demands attention, care and persistence from a sprawling network of individuals beyond the immediate family.

America’s right-wing nuts hated her metaphor of the village, interpreting it as an assault on the sanctity of parental power. But having grown up in a violent household myself, I loved Hillary’s point that a biological mother and father often ain’t enough. It takes a village.

So how ironic that, for many children in the Muslim world, the village is the problem, not the solution. Actually, it’s village idiots who are the problem. Let me illustrate.

Village Idiot #1: In Pakistan, Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri has defended the fact that three girls and two women were buried alive in his remote town. Their “crime”? According to reports, they wished “to marry of their own will.”

Senator Village Idiot sees nothing wrong with shooting these girls, then flinging them into dirt pits as their bodies cling to life. He calls the brutality a part of “our tribal custom.”

Village Idiot #2: In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai sheds a few tears, fires a police chief every so often, but ultimately tolerates the gang-rape of adolescent girls because, hey, it’s tough to rule a lawless country.

In an honor-drenched society, it’s equally tough for fathers to step up and admit that their daughters have been violated. But Sayed Nurallah has gone public. From CNN.com:

“Nurallah says that coming forward with his daughter’s story makes him a target, which he firmly accepts. He says that seeking justice for his daughter is a matter of integrity.

‘She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming,’ Nurallah says of his daughter. ‘Her arms, legs, her body - she is always tense and frightened.’

Nurallah also pleads for justice. ‘I have one question for Mr. Karzai: If this was your little girl, what would you do?’”

President Village Idiot has yet to reply.

Village Idiot #3: There’s no name by which to identify this person because it’s not one person. It’s the formless, faceless web of traffickers — a village in its own right — that exports children from the Bangladeshi borderlands to India for the pleasure of, in the words of one girl prostitute, “bad men.”

Recently, the brave British journalist Johann Hari went undercover to capture the story of these village children. Afterwards, he shared with me a passage:

“One tall girl with high cheek bones is singing. She shakes my hand and introduces herself as Shelaka, and says she is 16. Then, confidently, carefully, she explains how got here.

She grew up in a village three hours from Dhaka, and for as long as she could remember, she loved to sing. ‘It is the best feeling in the world, to sing,’ she says. But when she went through puberty, her fiercely religious parents said it was no longer ‘appropriate’ for a Muslim girl to sing, and she had to leave these ’stupid dreams’ behind.

‘If I tried to sing, they would hit me,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think it was fair, because if I was a boy I would be allowed to sing. It doesn’t make sense. Why should only boys be allowed to choose their own job? Men make women depend on them, and that’s why they are treated badly.’”

Compelled by Shelaka’s words, Johann pulled me closer to the rumblings in his conscience: “The next time somebody tells me that feminism is a ‘Western’ concept, I will tell them about Shelaka. She thought of feminism all by herself, in a village in rural Bangladesh.”

Which brings me to some positive news.

For all the village idiots out there, we can also put names to their opposites: agents of moral courage. These are individuals who speak truth to power in their own communities for a greater good.

Shelaka is one of them. Then there’s the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, whose members are routinely targeted for busting deadly silences about the treatment of females in “post-Taliban” Afghanistan.

Even in the Pakistani legislature, when Senator Village Idiot justified burying girls alive, the issue only rose to the surface because of a morally courageous woman, Senator Bibi Yasmin Shah. She demanded accountability. Although Senator Shah didn’t get far, she managed to have the barbarism of this case officially recorded for future legislators.

“Big deal,” some would snort. But in the absence of immediate change, getting it in writing is a big deal. Johann Hari ended his note to me this way:

“I’m slightly — slightly — soothed by the great war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. She had just heard that the novelist Dos Passos had said people shouldn’t be wasting their time writing during war. In a letter to a friend in 1941, Martha disagreed. ‘If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world, the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive to make the world more liveable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that is something no one else will do, and it is a job that must be done. It is the only revenge that all the bastardized people will ever get: that somebody writes down clearly what happened to them.”

That’s my contribution, too.

If you don’t know what yours can be, start with Equality Now. I’m linking you to their “creative ideas” page in English. You can also read their web content in French, Spanish and Arabic.

More than ever, I’m convinced that it takes a global village to transform the local village into a place of dignity for every child.

Personal thanks from Jewel of Medina author

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Aug 28, 2008

Sometimes, the emails I receive are downright ugly. But here’s one that’s nothing short of beeyootiful.

It comes from Sherry Jones, author of the now-infamous novel, The Jewel of Medina, which tells the story of the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest wife, Aisha. Random House bought the rights to release the book in America, only to cancel publication out of sheer fear.

In a column for the Globe and Mail, I spoke my mind about Random House’s decision. My commentary ended by celebrating the gutsiness of the first publisher to take a chance on The Trouble With Islam Today. That publisher’s name? Random House Canada.

Hours after the piece ran, I found this in my inbox:

“Irshad, your column was priceless. I had goosebumps when I read your final line.

By far, it’s the best written account of events I’ve seen… The irony is that my book, previously deemed of interest mostly to Western women, now has interest all over the world, including in Denmark!

And its impact now extends far beyond the text, challenging us to continue the fight for our freedoms; challenging the moderate Muslim community to stand up and be heard; giving voice to the weariness we are all feeling in the U.S. of living fear-stunted lives.

With voices like yours rising up in defense of my freedom of speech, I do not feel muzzled — not any more.”

Nor should readers feel gagged. Fans of this blog have emailed to say that they’re buying copies of Jewel online as an act of free conscience. A Westerner working in Pakistan told me that he’s already snapped up two copies from amazon.co.uk.

Fabulous. If irshadmanji.com can serve as a launching pad for more sales of Jewel, I’m happy for Sherry.

Even more, I’m thrilled for Aisha.

Self-censorship in the “land of the free”

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Aug 24, 2008

I promised you the link to my commentary about the novel that Random House New York has cancelled out of sheer fear. Here you go.

In writing my editorial, I asked the book’s author, Sherry Jones, about the most important point for people to understand.  She replied, “The feminist aspect of what I’m doing. I wrote [this novel], in part, because I recognize the absence of women’s voices in the way Islamic history is told. Women played a huge leadership role in the founding of the faith.  Silencing my voice only achieves more silencing of theirs.”

Just one of multiple ironies, as you’ll see when you read the entire column. (Note: In a few days, the newspaper will make you pay for access to my piece, so read it now.)

Screw the experts

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Aug 21, 2008

A lot of you are asking for my take on this story: Random House New York has shelved plans to publish The Jewel of Medina, an historical novel about the Prophet Muhammad’s second and youngest wife, Aisha. Rest assured that I’m writing a commentary about it and will post the link as soon as it’s printed.

But here’s what I want you to know right away. Before deciding to pull the book, Random House consulted academic “experts.” As if they’re objective. Take it from me: so-called scholars can be petty, politicized and, above all, paranoid.

I know first-hand. PBS, broadcaster of Faith Without Fear, sent a rough cut of my film to “academic advisors.” Here are highlights of their feedback:

* “She permits a man to dress her.”

* “She invites an Imam to her home unaccompanied… This is inappropriate for any ‘Muslim’ woman.”

* “Given the size of the Arab Muslim world, why choose [to go to] Yemen? To mislead.”

* “The deliberate juxtaposition between the unpaved roads in Yemen and the paved streets with yards in America speaks to the lack of cultural information. Are all the people of the world to now have houses like Americans?”

And my conspiratorial favorite:

* “A clear signal of animosity to the Muslim audience.”

Such “expertise” makes me chuckle because Faith Without Fear has been embraced by Muslims far and wide. On the night of its PBS premiere, my assistant flooded me with forwards. They were grateful responses from young Muslims.

I asked him to send me criticisms, too, so that PBS would get a balanced picture. He told me, “The moment you receive a complaint, I’ll make sure to share it. Until then, I’m afraid this is all I can send you.”

Since then, Faith Without Fear has launched the Muslim Film Festival organized by the American Islamic Congress. It won Gold at the New York Television Festival. The film scored an Emmy nomination. It’s even been screened in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country.

With only an honorary doctorate to my name, I claim no expertise. But allow me to offer a bit of advice to budding writers, filmmakers, and public intellectuals: Screw the experts.

Write.

Speak.

Debate.

Develop moral courage.

The critics will howl anyway. Make it worth their while — and yours.

Wafers of mass destruction

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Aug 17, 2008

Sigmund Freud reportedly said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But in the Catholic Church, a wafer ain’t just a wafer. Once blessed by the priest, it becomes the body of Christ. And if it’s not immediately consumed, the Eucharist can ruin Sunday mass. You could say it mutates into a wafer of mass destruction.

That’s what recently got a young Catholic dissident in big trouble — to the point of his life being threatened. Here’s a news report.

Now here’s the skinny: Webster Cook, a student senator at the University of Central Florida, vocally disagrees with school funds going to Catholic and other religious groups. Nonetheless, a few Sundays ago, he brought a friend to campus mass. The friend apparently had questions about Catholicism.

Rather than swallow the wafer that’s handed to him during Communion, Cook brought it back to his pal in the pews. At one point, Cook claims, a fellow parishioner used physical force to intimidate him into eating the now-holy cracker.

It didn’t work.

According to the local Church, Cook “kidnapped” the body of Christ and, um, held it hostage in a Ziploc bag. Word spread. The parish accused him of committing a mortal sin. Bloggers began pelting Cook with cries of blasphemy. I’m told that he even got death threats.

The following week, Cook returned the wafer along with a letter to parishioners. In it, he took the high road: “I want to thank the individuals who explained the emotional and spiritual pain my possession of the Eucharist caused them to experience. They have demonstrated that the use [of] reason is more effective than the use of force.”

I’ve blogged elsewhere about the rising aggression of the Catholic Church and how that’s linked to the “rights” increasingly demanded by organized religions, including Islam. I’ve also blogged about the humanity of which Catholic leaders are capable and what Muslims can learn from them.

In fact, I’ve often said that my favorite priest is Father David O’Leary, head chaplain at Tufts University in Boston. Father O is a Catholic refusenik. He embraces intellectual inquiry a la Augustine and Aquinas, while refusing to become a robot in God’s name. Not only does Father O challenge various Church edicts; he’s got the spiritual spine to question injustices in other religions — the hallmark of moral courage for any contemporary liberal.

That’s why Father O has gone out of his way to champion Muslim women as imams. His efforts demonstrate that Catholicism can be revolutionary when solid faith trumps insecure dogma.

So this column isn’t motivated by Catholic-bashing. Exactly the opposite: It’s about opposing violence. Period.

Which serves as a reminder for all of you to sign my anti-death threat petition. Its language singles out Islamism because the petition originates in a serious death threat that I and 11 other writers received from ummah.com. You’ll see that the petition advocates “freedom, equal opportunity, human rights and secular values for all.”

I’m happy to say that it’s already supported by nearly 3,500 people worldwide, with the most recent signatories coming from Syria, Argentina, Afghanistan, Australia, Venezuala, Indonesia, Portugal, Malaysia, Finland, Canada, the UAE, America and India.

Such vast global scope is appropriate: When the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a bounty on Salman Rushdie’s head almost 20 years ago, most Christian and Jewish clerics stayed mute. They wouldn’t have threatened their own like this. Still, their silence revealed the universal appeal of dogma.

Wafers of mass destruction are only the latest example of dogma unleashed. I may be crackers for having faith, but my faith welcomes the presence of wafer-smugglers, doubters, even atheists.

God love ‘em all, especially when God’s self-styled emissaries don’t.

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