Author Calls for Islamic Reforms During UC Talk By MICHAEL KATZ

The Koran and Hadith (Muslim gospel) passages about the rewards to ’Äúmartyrs’Äù can be read either way, according to a linguistic historian quoted in Irshad Manji’Äôs book, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’Äôs Call for Reform in Her Faith. And among the book’Äôs central points is the lethal danger of interpreting scriptural metaphor literally.

’ÄúEvery religion has its share of literalists,’Äù Manji acknowledged in an April 19 talk at UC Berkeley’Äôs Pauley Ballroom. ’ÄúAmerican Christianity has its evangelicals, some of whom still populate the highest office in the land. Jews have their ultra-Orthodox. ... Even Buddhists have fundamentalists.’Äù

But ’Äúthe trouble’Äù with her own faith, Manji said, is that ’Äúonly within Islam today is literalism mainstream worldwide.’Äù

Even moderate Muslims, Manji said, often believe that because the Koran was written after the Torah and the Bible, it is a literal ’Äúmanifesto of God’Äôs will...it is ’ÄòGod 3.0,’Äô and none shall come after it.’Äù Manji called this a dangerous ’Äúsupremacy complex.’Äù

’ÄúWhen abuse happens under the banner of Islam today,’Äù she said, even Muslims ’Äúwith fancy titles and formal educations do not yet know how to debate and dissent with the jihadists. ... It’Äôs because we have not yet been introduced to the possibility of asking questions about our ’Äòperfect’Äô holy book.’Äù

Manji’Äôs book is a manifesto of a different sort’Äîone devoted, she says, to ’Äúhelping Islam rediscover its glorious humanitarian potential.’Äù Manji challenges her fellow Muslims to recover a tradition of independent thinking and reasoning known as ’Äúijtihad.’Äù

Although the word has the same root as ’Äújihad,’Äù meaning ’Äúto struggle,’Äù Manji emphasized that neither term originally had violent connotations.

’ÄúIn the early centuries of Islam, thanks to ijtihad, 135 schools of thought flourished,’Äù Manji said. ’ÄúIn Muslim Spain, scholars would teach their students to abandon ’Äòexpert opinion’Äô about the Koran if their own conversations...came up with better evidence.’Äù

This pluralistic era produced one of the world’Äôs first universities, in ninth-century Baghdad, said Manji. She also credited ijtihad with early Islam’Äôs contributions to ’ÄúWestern pop culture.’Äù

’ÄúMuslims gave the world Mocha coffee (you’Äôre welcome!). ... Cough syrup. The guitar.’Äù

The plain-spoken, sometimes glib Manji might seem an unlikely catalyst for what she calls an ’ÄúIslamic reformation.’Äù She’Äôs an ethnically South Asian, Ugandan-born, Canadian-raised, spiky-haired, out lesbian who has been a legislative aide and political speechwriter, and who is best known in Canada as a television host and producer. Like a lot of Berkeley residents, she has a multifaceted identity, for which she makes no apology.

She’Äôs also a lay Muslim who got herself permanently thrown out of her madressa (Saturday religious school) at age 14 after years of asking too many ’Äúhard’Äù questions about doctrine. But inspired by heroes who included Socrates, she kept asking those hard questions and kept studying Islam on her own.

’ÄúI could have walked away,’Äù she said, ’Äúand gone on with becoming a materialistic North American for whom the mall is the God, as some Muslims quietly do.’Äù Instead, she said, she happily discovered ’Äúa truly progressive side of my faith.’Äù

Since publishing this book’Äîher second’Äîin 2003, when she was 35, Manji has received praise, condemnation, and death threats. She installed bulletproof glass in her Toronto home, and hired a bodyguard for her first book tour. Two uniformed UC police officers guarded her Berkeley talk.

Why risk her safety by writing what she calls her ’Äúopen letter’Äù for reform? Manji said she saw it as an obligation.

’ÄúThe Islamic reformation begins in the West,’Äù she writes, because ’Äúit’Äôs here that we [Muslims] enjoy precious freedoms to think, express, challenge, and be challenged without fear of state reprisal.’Äù

’ÄúI speak as a refugee when I say this is a precious gift,’Äù she told her Berkeley audience. ’ÄúAnd I’Äôm asking my fellow Muslims: What in God’Äôs name are we doing with this gift?’Äù

The book indicts ’Äúdesert tribalism’Äù for restraining Islam’Äôs progress in crucial areas: the ill-treatment of women in the Muslim world, the ’ÄúJew-bashing and Jew-baiting in which too many Muslims persistently engage,’Äù ’Äúthe continuing scourge of slavery’Äù under Islamist regimes, and those regimes’Äô suppression of basic human rights.

’ÄúIn the last 100 years alone,’Äù Manji said, ’Äúmore Muslims have been tortured and murdered at the hands of other Muslims than at the hands of any foreign imperial power.’Äù

To address these problems, Manji believes, ordinary Muslims must ultimately gain the confidence to question received interpretations of their faith. For many outside the West, a first prerequisite is basic literacy. And for Western Muslims and non-Muslims who want to help, the book proposes a plan of action.

’ÄúI call this thoroughly non-military campaign ’ÄòOperation Ijtihad’Äô,’Äù Manji said. ’ÄúIt begins by liberating the entrepreneurial talents of women in the Muslim world, by providing them with ’Äòmicro-enterprise’Äô loans.’Äù These $100-$300 investments were pioneered by Bangladesh’Äôs renowned Grameen Bank.

’ÄúThere is absolute consensus within Islam,’Äù Manji said, ’Äúthat when a Muslim woman earns her own assets’Äîlet’Äôs say by starting a business’Äîshe gets to keep 100 percent of those assets, and do with them as she sees fit.’Äù

’ÄúWhat could Muslim women do with these assets?’Äù Manji asked. ’ÄúThey could become literate. They could learn to read the Koran for themselves,’Äù rather than ’Äúmerely swallowing...the selective verses that mullahs and imams tend to shove down their throats.’Äù

Manji quoted a photographer friend’Äôs encounter with a woman entrepreneur in Afghanistan who had followed exactly this path.

’ÄúYou know the progressive verses in the Koran that you identify in your book?’Äù her friend told Manji. ’ÄúShe found the verses you’Äôre talking about, she recited them to her abusive husband, and ever since then, he has not laid an unwanted finger on her.’Äù

’ÄúThis,’Äù Manji said, ’Äúis the power not just of the Koran, but also of literacy.’Äù

Manji also mentioned women in Kabul, Afghanistan, who have used their capital to open schools for girls. She quoted a banner there that read, ’ÄúEducate a boy and you educate only that boy, but educate a girl and you educate her entire family.’Äù

’ÄúAs economists might put it, the ’Äòmultiplier effect’Äô of investing in Muslim women cannot be underestimated,’Äù Manji said. She raised the prospect of wealthy nations ’Äútaking just a sliver of their defense budgets...and pooling them into a coherent program of micro-business loans for women in the Islamic world.’Äù

At a recent Stanford University conference, Manji was delighted to hear Lt. Gen. John Abizaid’Äîwho commands U.S. forces in the Middle East’Äîindependently propose investing in similar loans to Muslim women.

Manji’Äôs nonviolent struggles have sometimes taken place with her own mother, a devout Muslim who admonished her ’Äúnot to anger God’Äù in writing the book. When her mother first attended mosque after the book’Äôs publication, she was brought to tears by an imam who denounced her daughter as ’Äúmore criminal than Osama bin Laden.’Äù

But fellow congregants quickly came over to tell her, ’ÄúI’Äôve read Irshad’Äôs book, and what she’Äôs saying absolutely needs to be expressed.’Äù

Manji proudly displayed a greeting card that her mother slipped into her suitcase shortly afterwards. It read, ’ÄúBravo! My dear daughter, I’Äôm so proud of your achievement. You go, girl!’Äù

’ÄúI leave you with the same message that my mother gave to me,’Äù Manji told Muslims and non-Muslims in her audience. ’ÄúYou go! Dare to ask questions out loud. That’Äôs how open societies remain open.’Äù

THE TROUBLE WITH ISLAM TODAY: A MUSLIM’ÄôS CALL FOR

REFORMING HER FAITH

By Irshad Manji

St. Martin’Äôs Griffin, 240 pages, $12.95

Israd Manji’Äôs website: