It was the catalyst for a 20-year journey by the
self-styled "Muslim refusenik" to study the problems she felt
plagued Islam, culminating in an explosive new book, "The
Trouble With Islam: A Wake Up Call for Honesty and Change."
In the book, recently published in Canada and available in
the United States in January as well as other countries soon,
Manji calls for Muslims worldwide to usher in an era of
reformation through introspection.
Manji explains in her book that being a refusenik "doesn't
mean I refuse to be a Muslim; it simply means I refuse to join
an army of automatons in the name of Allah."
Penned as an open letter to citizens worldwide, the
34-year-old author and broadcaster, who was named a "feminist
for the 21st century" by Ms. Magazine, tackles three issues she
describes as the main problems within Islam: the inferior
treatment of women, anti-Semitism and the use of slavery in
Islamic countries.
"Of the five fingers that Almighty God has given most of us
on each hand, if we point one at Israel and another at America,
what are the three remaining fingers pointed at? Will we point
at least one of them at ourselves? Can we dare to have that
happen? And if not, why not?" Manji said in an interview at the
office of her publisher, Random House, in Toronto.
"I leave my fellow Muslims with a very basic question here:
Will we remain spiritually adolescent, caving to cultural
pressures to conform or will we finally mature to the full
fledged citizens that we are allowed to be in this part of the
world?"
Manji, who was born in Uganda and moved with her family to
Richmond, outside of Vancouver after they were expelled by Idi
Amin in 1972, gained a following for her 1997 book called
"Risking Utopia" on how youth are redefining democracy. She was
also as host and producer of "Queer Television" which billed
itself as the world's first show on commercial television for
gays.
She views her book as a wake-up call for non-Muslims to be
wary of "Islamo-festishists," meaning people who romanticize
Islam.
"The next time you hear an Islamo-fetishist, Muslim or not,
wax eloquent that Islamic societies have their own form of
democracy, you need only interject with one question: What
rights do women and religious minorities actually exercise? Not
what the Koran says about this but what is happening on the
ground."
DEATH THREATS
Manji's firm, loud voice contrasts deeply with her
pixy-like stature and spiky, brown hair.
Her outspoken views on Islam have quickly garnered her an
outpouring of hate mail as well as concrete death threats. Her
formidable bodyguard waited across the hall during the
interview.
Manji has been labeled an agent for Israel's Mossad
intelligence service by her detractors as well as a Jewish
woman who changed her name to a Muslim-sounding one. The
author, who is a lesbian, has received criticism that her
partner is Jewish. She is not.
Manji candidly discussed the potential backlash to her
book with her neighbors, who decided to move.
She even broached the issue of tackling Islamic reform
with the fatwa-plagued Salman Rushdie in an interview. When
Manji asked him why she should write the book and invite death
threats into her life, he responded that the world needs
change.
Yet, the author herself remains unafraid.
"I don't see this as a courageous move at all. I have lived
my life as someone who busts hypocrisy as every turn. My
integrity as a human being, as a journalist and as a Muslim is
very important to me," insisted Manji.
Manji's manifesto entreats Muslims to embrace the concept
of "ijtihad" -- Islam's tradition of independent thinking. She
hopes the book will make the word "ijtihad" as common in
contemporary Western vernacular as "jihad" has become.
If efforts to reform Islam are unsuccessful, Manji holds
open the possibility she will leave the faith.
"It is precisely because I care so much about integrity
that if I don't see an appetite for reform among my fellow
Muslims, particularly in the West, then I may very well have to
leave the faith because my own integrity will not allow me to
be complicit in what I will have to conclude by then has become
a totalitarian belief system," she said.
