Robert Fulford
National Post

Saturday, April 14, 2007

It was probably inevitable that Irshad Manji would emerge as both narrator and star of Faith Without Fear, a one-hour documentary critique of Islam. The program appears on TV twice this week, first on Thursday night on the PBS America at a Crossroads series (now tainted by the decision to withdraw Islam vs. Islamists, a film by another Canadian, Martyn Burke, apparently because PBS considers it too hostile to Islamic extremists) and then on Global Saturday night.

Manji's appearance at the core of Faith Without Fear reflects the fact that her opinions have turned her everyday life into a high-profile drama. In 2003 her book, The Trouble with Islam, gave her a role in a global controversy. It aroused hope among those who want Islam reformed and excited the rage of Muslims who consider criticism of their faith offensive, particularly when it comes from a self-designated "Muslim refusenik" who believes the Koran needs reinterpretation.

Manji has her supporters, but many Muslims respond to her arguments with insults and death threats. She lives behind bulletproof glass in a Toronto house whose address she doesn't casually disclose. While filming part of Faith Without Fear in Yemen, she had three bodyguards.

Her presence in the foreground of the program turns out to be engaging and often surprising. In tone, this resembles no other film about Islam. To a faith deeply stained by tragedy, Manji brings the buoyant optimism of an energetic Canadian feminist who believes problems, however titanic, can be solved by goodwill, persuasion, intelligence and relentless effort. Never solemn, disarmingly relaxed in her narration, she comes across as a most unlikely dissident.

The graceful but sharply pointed script, on which Manji collaborated with the director, Ian McLeod, borrows the traditional format of picaresque novels in which a highly resilient central figure travels to distant places in search of knowledge. The journey provides the structure.

In Yemen, she meets an amiable cab driver who used to be a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden; he remains so loyal to al-Qaeda that he hopes to see his own young son become a martyr. In the Netherlands, Manji talks with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose filmmaking partner, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered for directing Submission, an abrasive attack on Islam's treatment of women. The murderer left a death threat for Hirsi Ali, who has since abandoned the Netherlands for a think-tank job in Washington. Manji also meets a Dutch Muslim rapper, musically westernized but sympathetic to Van Gogh's killer.

Salman Rushdie shows up to tell us that writers enjoying freedom have a duty to use it, which fits in with Manji's views. The "fear" in her title refers, among other things, to the fear of speaking freely. Underneath all her work a crucial question remains unanswered: Can Islam learn to tolerate those who are faithful but refuse to be fearfully obedient? The answer, so far, is no, but Manji remains hopeful.

In Spain she meets a Muslim leader whose opinions support her desire for a return to ijtihad, the ancient tradition of independent thinking that once allowed Islam to create a sophisticated civilization.

We meet Manji's mother, Mumtaz Manji, who supports her daughter's work but fears that she goes dangerously far. She would also be happier if Irshad would follow the usual five-times-a-day prayer rules. Those are God's rules, she says, and Irshad shouldn't be making up her own, praying when she wishes. Her love and concern for her daughter are among the most memorable qualities of this touching and often stirring film.

There's one brief scene that begins by looking frivolous but then turns deeply evocative. In a Yemen store Manji tries on a full burqa, which hides everything except her hands and eyes. At first her encounter with the storekeeper looks like a spoof, a way to lighten the narrative. As Manji takes off her glasses so that he can help her put on the headscarf, she jokes, "Talk about blind faith."

But her intention suddenly becomes clear: We are watching a good-looking, highly expressive woman vanish behind yards of black fabric. Before our eyes she seems to surrender her very self. As we follow her out onto the street, the effect grows more chilling. Men stroll past, dressed according to their own tastes, while Manji disappears in a mass of anonymous black shapes, moving gently into the distance on the road back to the middle ages. What looked at first like a footnote becomes the most expressive passage in the story.

© National Post 2007