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.
