No, Irshad Manji is not afraid.
She may have installed some bulletproof windows in her Toronto home. And, as she makes her way across the country to promote her book, The Trouble With Islam: A Wake-up Call for Honesty and Change, she is accompanied by a bodyguard. But these are just "precautionary measures," she told The Gazette late Tuesday evening in an interview at a private Montreal home.
"I have had concrete threats on my life, via e-mail," she said. "The Metro Toronto Police are on top of it. But I have to tell you that I have an enormous peace of mind."
"I don't lose a wink of sleep over any of this," Manji says. "I'm very resolute in the integrity of what I've done and why I'm doing it. So the threats may continue to pile up, or they may stop. It simply doesn't affect me."
Anyone who has read the book, however, may be forgiven for wondering if 34-year-old Manji is just a bit too naˆØve for her own good. Her book is a devastating critique of Islamic fundamentalism tackling thorny issues like the inferior status of women, anti-Semitism and the second-class status of non-Arab Muslims in Islamic countries - and the continued existence of slavery in places like Mali. Plus she dares to point out that Israel, whatever its faults, is a functioning multi-ethnic, pluralistic democracy.
No wonder, then, that her publisher, Random House, approached Canadian Solicitor General Wayne Easter in July, asking that Manji be granted International Protected Person Status. The request was denied. The cost of her private security, covering person and property at home and on tour, is shared by her and Random House.
In person, Manji has a perky, Peter Pan-takes-on-the-pirates quality. This fits with her prose style, which is argumentative, direct, tightly reasoned and packed with knock-out punches.
Just off the train from Toronto, she showed no signs of fatigue, talking non-stop as if she was worried about running out of air time in the studio. An experienced television journalist, Manji is currently host of TVOntario's Big Ideas program.
"You take on an issue like this because you're passionate about the purpose behind it," she said. "And intellectually, in the writing process you know that if this paragraph doesn't raise some people's ire, the next paragraph will. But you continue because you know it's necessary. "
Manji's book begins with an author's note addressed to her fellow Muslims: "I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me. I'm hanging on by my fingernails, in anxiety over what's coming next from the self-appointed ambassadors of Allah. When I consider all the fatwas being hurled by the brain trust of our faith I feel utter embarrassment."
A female Salman Rushdie, you say? Not quite. Manji makes Rushdie seem, well, a little passˆ©, although her generation has undeniably gained from his trailblazing. The two writers also differ in approach. His Satanic Verses, the book that provoked a fatwa, which sent him into hiding for eight years, was cloaked in the veil of highly literate fiction. In The Trouble With Islam, Manji calls it as she sees it, in accessible, populist prose. When you want to start a revolution or, in this case, spark a reformation, it helps if the masses can decode the message. Another key difference between the two authors is that Rushdie believes secular humanism will save the world. She hasn't given up on Allah. And she's pretty sure she's not going to draw a fatwa.
Why not? Official state fatwas, like the kind aimed at Rushdie from Iran, just aren't happening any more, she said. And she couldn't care less about one issued by "some rag-tag mullah who loves to throw around legal opinions."
In her book, she sheds light on the world's most absurd fatwa, by a Saudi cleric against Pokˆ©mon. Why? Because the word Pokˆ©mon was falsely claimed to be "I am Jewish" in Japanese. "This the depth of the neurotic anti-Semitism that courses through too much of the Muslim world," she said.
Manji is also aware that if she dropped into the wrong Muslim country she might get stoned to death for being a lesbian. She has aired footage to prove it happens. Manji's three years as host of Queer Television, the first show on commercial TV to explore the overlap between gay and straight culture, helped prepare her for her current situation, she said. "You can appreciate that even three years ago, such a show exposed me to a whole lot of emotionalism, on various fronts. It taught me to just steel my spine and get on with the job."
Manji shares her home and life with a former member of the military, Michelle Douglas, best known as the lesbian who sued the Canadian armed forces for sexual-preference discrimination in the early 1990s - and won (in 1992). "It was because of (Douglas) that Canada's ban on gay and lesbian military officers was overturned, sparking Bill Clinton's own attempt to overturn the ban in the United States," Manji explained. "So, to cut to the chase, she understands the need to fight the good fight. She's learned a thing or two. And she's very proud of me."
(Irreverent thought: Only a truly suicidal jihad type would dare to mess with these two women.)
What does Manji's devoutly Islamic mother think of the book? "She never asked me not to write this book. But she did ask me not to anger God. And I reminded her not to confuse angering imams with angering God. She's increasingly convinced of the validity of my perspective because a few members of her own congregation have approached her to say, 'I've read the book. What Irshad's saying is 100-per-cent true.' "
Manji's mother, whose education ended at Grade 3, has finally forgiven her daughter for not becoming a lawyer. An award-winning student, Manji was headed directly for law school when she decided to take a year off from her studies. She took up journalism and never looked back. From the beginning, she was an iconoclast. And her rise to prominence was swift. In 1997, she was singled out by Ms. Magazine as "a feminist for the 21st century."
Manji was born in Uganda, arrived in Canada at the age of 8 and grew up in Richmond, B.C. Her father's abusive ways convinced her that education was her ticket to freedom. Her mother was her ally. After a recent visit home, Manji was deeply touched when she reached into her suitcase to find a note from her mother saying, "You go, girl!"
Not that she ever stops.
In The Trouble With Islam, Manji whips through several thousand years of Islamic history in just under 250 pages. Sometimes the ride is breathtaking - as well as inspiring. She makes it sound possible for young Muslims like herself to influence the tides of modern Islamic thought, and lead the next generation in a positive, constructive direction.
"The whole point of this book is to create conversations where none existed before," she said.
Or at least not for the last few centuries.
There was a time, during the height of the Islamic golden age, when enlightenment was very much on this religion's agenda, along with the invention of algebra.
"It's not so much that Islam has never gone through Reformation," Manji said. "It has. But most of them have been conservative reformations taking us further and further back, to the 7th century, along with, of course, 7th century mores and values, such as 'women are evil temptations' or 'the Jews and Christians are infidels to be fought' or 'there's a vendetta and counter-vendetta of Islam at every turn.' These are very much the values of 'Desert Islam,' as I call it in the book."
Liberal reformations, such as the one that took place in Egypt in the early 1900s, have been short-lived, she said. "And they died at the hands of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which was the precursor of Al-Qa'ida, setting the precedent for the kinds of tactics that Al-Qa'ida uses today."
Manji advocates a reformation she calls "Operation Ijtihad."
"We have a glorious opportunity here in the West to revive Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking. It's a tradition called the ijtihad, which sounds a lot like like jihad (or holy war). And it comes from the same root, to struggle. But ijtihad is the very antithesis of violent struggle. It's all about independent reasoning, independent thinking."
Western Muslims must lead the way, she said, "because we already enjoy precious freedom to think and express and challenge and be challenged. All without fear of state reprisals."
Her proposal also includes a practical suggestion, the empowering of Muslim women in third-world countries by providing small loans to help them start small businesses like the program Clinton once launched in Arkansas).
Like so many Canadian immigrants, Manji is grateful just to be here.
"I wake up every morning thanking God that I wound up in this part of the world."
Ironically, if she hadn't, she probably wouldn't be religious.
Through the exercise of her academic freedom, "I discovered a progressive side of my faith that I would have never even been able to conceive of had I remained stuck in that parochial microcosm called the madrassa."
What's Manji's take on gay marriage?
Although she wears a broad silver band signalling romantic commitment on the ring finger of her left hand, Manji and her partner have chosen not to marry.
"I respect the need for choice. We're not interested in being married. But I defend the right of same-sex couples to be married should they choose to."
At the same time, "It's not one of those issues that keep me awake at night. I must tell you that I would not cry discrimination if Canada's House of Commons decided to reject the legislation. I really wouldn't. I think that gay marriage - and I know that I'll take flak for this - is a more complex moral issue than strident gays and lesbians are willing to acknowledge."
Is that the rumbling of yet another riled constituency I hear in the background?
The Trouble With Islam will be released in the U.S. and other countries in the new year.
The Trouble With Islam:
A Wake-up Call for Honesty and Change, by Irshad Manji, Random House Canada. 237 pages. $22.95. Manji's Web site: www.muslim-refusenik.com
The Trouble With Islam will be reviewed in Saturday's Gazette
pdonnell@thegazette.canwest.com