'Muslim Refusenik' Incites Furor With Critique of Faith
Canadian's Book Challenges Treatment of Women Under Islam
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 19, 2004; Page A14
TORONTO -- Irshad Manji remembers receiving a newspaper clipping about a Nigerian girl who had been sentenced by an Islamic court for having sex before marriage. Although seven witnesses backed her testimony that three men had raped her, the court decided she should suffer more punishment -- 180 lashes.
On the clipping, scribbled in red ink, was a note from one of Manji's colleagues: "Irshad, one of these days you'll tell me how you reconcile this kind of insanity and female genital mutilation with your Muslim faith."
Manji, 35, who lives in Canada, said she identified with the story as a Muslim woman and because she, too, was born in Africa. But she was also haunted by the injustice. If there was something in Islam that allowed a girl to be punished for being raped, there was something in Islam that needed to be changed, she thought. Soon after, Manji began calling herself a "Muslim refusenik."
It did not mean, she said, that she was refusing to be a Muslim, as she had been raised. "It simply means I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah," she explained.
This new perspective led Manji to write a book titled "The Trouble With Islam: A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change." Recently released in the United States, Manji's book challenges Muslims worldwide to end human rights violations committed against women and religious minorities in the name of Islam. She also calls for an end to anti-Semitism, which she says has no basis in the preaching of the Koran.
Her book has created a firestorm of debate in Canada and Germany, where it was previously released. She has been called the "nonfiction Salman Rushdie," a reference to the Indian-born author whose 1988 book, "The Satanic Verses," provoked death threats and a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling on Muslims to kill him. Manji says she also is facing threats on her life.
"Anybody who undertakes a book like this has to be prepared for what comes after it," she said in an interview at a restaurant in Toronto. "I have received concrete death threats. Most are well thought out. . . . I'm not talking about critical e-mails or vitriolic hate -- I get that all the time. I'm talking about messages that threaten my life." She said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have advised her not to discuss the details of the warnings.
She described the book as the result of "a need identified at a deeply cellular level. I needed to write this, having grown up with a thick skin, a big brain and a bigger mouth, a combination that allows me to advocate ideas. . . . I'm morally obliged."
In the book, Manji writes: "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."
In a quick-fire critique, not slowing for apologies, Manji asks questions she says other Muslims are asking in private but dare not ask aloud. "Why are we being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? What's with the stubborn streak of anti-Semitism in Islam? Who is the real colonizer of Muslims -- America or Arabia? Why are we squandering the talents of women, fully half of God's creation?"
She has described herself as a feminist and a lesbian who clings to her religion. "How can we be sure that homosexuals deserve ostracism or death when the Koran states that everything God made is 'excellent'?" she wrote. "Of course, the Koran states more than that, but what's our excuse for reading the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous?"
She recites a list of recent atrocities committed against other Muslims in the name of religion. "I hear from a Saudi friend that his country's religious police arrest women for wearing red on Valentine's Day, and I think, 'Since when does a merciful God outlaw joy or fun?' " She hears about victims of rape stoned for having "committed adultery" and she says she wonders "how a critical mass of us can stay stone silent."
Manji was born in Uganda, and fled with her family to Canada from Idi Amin's atrocities in 1972, when she was 4 years old. The family settled in Richmond, a Vancouver suburb. She says she is estranged from her father but in contact with mother and two sisters. "As a Muslim woman, I wake up every morning thanking Allah that I wound up in this part of the world."
She describes her pursuit of freedom as having roots in childhood. At home, her father demanded obedience and was often violent. One night, she says, her father chased her through their house with a knife, and she escaped outside and took refuge on the roof. There, she had an epiphany. "I remember very clearly looking out over the neighborhood of homes. I thought even if my mother is home right now, she couldn't help me. It is here, in the wider world, I see open-ended possibility."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Irshad Manji, 35, has been called the "nonfiction Salman Rushdie" for "The Trouble With Islam: A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change."
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