'I refuse to join army of robots'

Irshad Manji, 35, is the author of The Trouble With Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith. The book — and Manji herself — have drawn fire from conservative Muslims. She's outspoken. And not afraid to take the heat for her views. Manji's family fled Uganda while it was under the rule of dictator Idi Amin in the early 1970s, moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1972.

Manji, who lives in Toronto, spoke with Journal-Constitution reporter Shelia M. Poole (spoole@ajc.com). Here are excerpts from the recent telephone interview.

Q: Why did you decide to publish the book now, at a time when many Muslims feel Islam is under attack and Muslims say they are being discriminated against?

A: More people today are listening to the debate about what Islamic reform means than they would have pre- 9/11. And anyone who does effective social activism knows that more than half the battle is getting people to care. For that reason alone, it's worth publishing a book like this now.

Q: You call yourself a "Muslim Refusenik." What does that mean?

A: Let me tell you first what it does not mean. It does not mean I refuse to be a Muslim. I [do] refuse to join an army of robots in the name of God. Anybody's God, including my own. This really gets us to what I consider to be the trouble with Islam today.

Q: Which is?

A: . . . The fact that literalism has gone mainstream. Jews have the orthodox and ultraorthodox. Christians have the evangelicals and fundamentalists. . . . The difference is, only in Islam today has literalism become the mainstream worldwide. We Muslims, even in the West, are raised to believe that because the Quran comes after the Torah and the Bible, historically and chronologically, that it is the final, and therefore, the perfect, manifestation of God's will, not given to the kinds of contradictions, ambiguity and, God forbid, human corruptions like those other sacred books. No, we Muslims, even the moderate among us, are taught that the Quran is not like every other holy book. It's God, 3.0. It's a supremacy complex that we Muslims have. It's dangerous.

Q: Why is it dangerous?

A: We have no clue how to debate, dissent, revise or reform. We don't know how to challenge the extremists in our religion. This is the main reason for the stony silence of moderate Muslims. Not just since 9/11 but before it. Where have the moderates been? Why haven't we heard more from them? . . . Far from being an attack on Islam, this book is a healthy critique that highlights how Islam can use a tradition that we once had as Muslims in order to heal the faith. And that tradition is ijtihad. Ijtihad is Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking. . . . Muslims once embraced a glorious tradition of critical thinking. I'm not asking Muslims to import some foreign virtue or alien value into Islam. I'm asking Muslims to rediscover what we once had in order to update Islam for the 21st century.

Q: Some have suggested that the title of your book should be the trouble with Muslims. Not the trouble with Islam.

A: I reject that. . . . First of all, what is religion if not the collective behavior of its practitioners? Most of us Muslims are complacent and passive in the face of the terrorism that is being committed in the name of our God. It's not enough to assume that non-Muslims know that Islam means peace and Islam means love. The question is what are we doing to prove it. Are we looking extremists in the eye and saying, "I'm a Muslim too and I disagree with your perspective"?

Q: I've talked to people who say such dialogue is taking place but it's not covered in the media.

A: Many critical thinkers in Islam are chatting with one another but not the general public. There is a gap in the dialogue that needs to happen with ordinary people — both Muslim and non-Muslim — in a dinnertime conversation kind of way.

Q: What's been the reaction of your family to your book?

A: Let me tell you about my mother. She is truly a devout Muslim. She, of course, continues to be concerned about my safety and security, so she's nervous. She never asked me not to write the book. . . . She only asked that I not anger God. A couple of weeks after the book came out in Canada, my mother went to the mosque. She excitedly called me that night. She said a number of people in the congregation individually and very privately approached her and whispered that " 'I have read the book and Irshad needed to say this.' This is what I as your mother needed to know, that you are not a self-hating Muslim and this is not a vendetta against Islam. What you have done, you did with integrity."