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Irshad Manji (born 1968) is a Canadian Muslim feminist, author, journalist, and activist. She is a well-known critic of radical Islam and orthodox interpretations of the Qur'an. The New York Times has described her as "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare".^[1] Manji advocates a revival of critical thinking, known as ijtihad in Islamic tradition. To that end, she has launched Project Ijtihad^[2], a program dedicated to encouraging Muslim youth to question traditional and orthodox interpretations of Islamic scriptures, and to creating a network of Muslims interested in a liberal reform of Islam.

Manji's book, The Trouble with Islam Today, has been published in over 30 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Urdu abd Malay. Her PBS documentary, Faith Without Fearhas received wide acclaim. It chronicles Manji's journey to reconcile faith and freedom. As a journalist, her articles have appeared in many publications, and she has addressed audiences ranging from Amnesty International to the United Nations Press Corps to the Democratic Muslims in Denmark to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She has appeared on television networks around the world, including Al Jazeera, the CBC, BBC, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNN, PBS, the Fox News Channel, and the CBS Evening News.^[3]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Muslim refusenik 3 Views 4 Reception 4.1 Praise 4.2 Criticism 5 Works 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Manji was born in Uganda in 1968 to parents of Gujarati Indian and southern Egyptian background. Her family moved to Canada when she was four, as a result of Idi Amin's expulsion of South Asians. She and her family settled near Vancouver in 1972, and she grew up attending both a secular and an Islamic religious school, known as a madrassah. Manji excelled in the secular environment but, by her own account, was expelled from her religious school for asking too many questions. For the next twenty years, she studied Islam via public libraries and Arabic tutors.

Manji earned an honours degree in the history of ideas from the University of British Columbia. In 1990, she won the Governor General's Silver Medal for top humanities graduate. She worked as a legislative aide in the Canadian parliament, press secretary in the Ontario government, and speechwriter for the leader of the New Democratic Party. At age 24, she became the national affairs editorialist for the Ottawa Citizen and thus the youngest member of an editorial board for any Canadian daily. She has hosted or produced several public affairs programs on television, one of which won the Gemini, Canada’s top broadcasting prize. In 2002, she became writer-in-residence at Hart House in the University of Toronto, from where she began writing The Trouble with Islam Today. From 2005 to 2006 she was a visiting fellow with the International Security Studies program ^[4] at Yale University and is currently a senior fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. In early 2008, Manji will join New York University, where she will be spearheading the Moral Courage Project, an initiative to help young people speak truth to power within their own communities.

As an out lesbian^[5], Manji participated in a regular segment on TVOntario's Studio 2 in the mid-1990s, representing progressive views in debates with conservative journalist Michael Coren. She later produced and hosted QT: QueerTelevision for the Toronto based Citytv in the late 1990s. Among the program's coverage of local and national LGBT issues, she also produced stories on the lives of gay people in the Muslim world. Upon the demise of the show, Manji donated the set's giant Q to the Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario.

Manji was awarded Oprah Winfrey's first annual Chutzpah Award for "audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction". Ms. Magazine named her a "Feminist for the 21st Century", and Immigration Equality gave her its Global Vision Prize. The World Economic Forum selected her as a Young Global Leader.

Manji is a friend of controversial writer Salman Rushdie, who was subject to a fatwa (religious ruling) for his novel The Satanic Verses. Like Rushdie, she has received numerous death threats. In an interview with Glenn Beck, aired on CNN 02-13-07, Manji stated that the windows of her apartment are fitted with bullet-proof glass, primarily for the protection of her family.

"Muslim refusenik" is a phrase Manji coined and uses to characterize all independent-minded, liberal, anti-fundamentalist Muslims.^[6] "Refusenik" is an English-Russian portmanteau word first used for Russian Jews refused permission to emigrate, and then for Israeli conscientious objectors who refused to do army service on the West Bank.

Manji is an outspoken proponent of ijtihad; she describes it as Islam’s lost tradition of independent thinking, which went into a decline toward the end of the 11th century CE and was replaced by more narrow and rigid interpretations of the Qur'an. In an interview given to Johann Hari of The Independent in May 2004, she explains: "what was true for ninth-century Mecca and Medina may not be the best interpretation of Allah's message today."^[7] She believes economic empowerment of women in the Muslim world is the key to reviving and democratizing the spirit of ijtihad. She also argues that Muslims in the West are best positioned to re-discover ijtihad because "it is here that we have the precious freedoms to think, express, challenge and be challenged on matters of religion, without fear of government reprisal."^[8]

In March 2006 she co-signed the high-profile MANIFESTO OF TWELVE: Together Facing The New Totalitarianism.^[9] The manifesto defends freedom of conscience and denounces violence as a response to offensive expression. The Manifesto emerged after violent protests in many countries surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Manji is impressed by the State of Israel: the "freedom of expression epitomized by a ferociously free press", open debate and self-criticism and the government's responsiveness to it, its multicultural nature, and tolerance of different religious groups and sexual orientations. She believes that the Muslim world should follow Israel's example of democratic freedom. She is often praised for this by pro-Israel groups.^[10]

The Trouble with Islam Today has created debate worldwide. The book is now translated into more than 30 languages. Manji also has multiple translations of the book (namely Arabic, Urdu, Malay and Persian) available for free-of-charge download on her website, [1]. Meant to reach readers in those countries where her book is banned, the translations are widely popular. To date, the Arabic translation alone has been downloaded more than a quarter of a million times.

Praise comes from both Muslim and non-Muslim sources. Khaleel Mohammed, an imam and professor of Islam at San Diego State University, wrote in his foreword to Manji's book that "Irshad wants us to do what our Holy Book wants us to do: end the tribal posturing, open our eyes, and stand up to oppression, even if it's rationalized by our vaunted imams... She remains obedient to the Divine Imperative: 'O you who believe! Be upholders of justice, witnesses for God, even if it be against yourselves, or your parents and kin' (Quran, 4:135)."

Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at Harvard University, says that “all is not lost if people of Irshad Manji's capacity can carry a fresh and convincing message to the coming generation. I cannot urge her more strongly to maintain her frank, open and intelligent approach. This cause is, I believe, the most important new movement in several decades.”

The New York Times Book Review wrote a positive review of The Trouble with Islam. Although Sullivan found some of Manji's "prescriptions for change in Islam ... dwarfed by the scale of the problem", he nevertheless considers Manji "a nerve ending for the West -- shocking, raw, but mercifully, joyously, still alive."^[11]

The Sydney Morning Herald also wrote a positive review.^[12]

Criticism also comes from within Islam and from secular sources. Some of Manji's critics allege that she goes too far in her criticisms of Islam and Muslims. Some claim there is a double standard between her criticism of Muslim states and her staunch defence of Israel.^[13]

As'ad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, charges Manji with disproportionately targeting Muslims, ignoring the peripheral context within which most Muslims live, and not applying the same critiques to other groups, notably those with significantly more power in society such as conservative Christians. Abu Khalil also asserts Manji is not trained in Islamic scholarship, history, or the Arabic language, and as such ignores the multiplicity of debates and traditions within Islam.^[14]

Tarek Fatah, a liberal Canadian Muslim, wrote in his critical review of The Trouble With Islam that the book "is aimed at making Muslim haters feel secure in their thinking."^[15] Others have been more blunt: Khaled Almeena, editor of the Arab News in Saudi Arabia, complains that "This fraudulent book has now become a guide to Islam."

Books

• The Trouble with Islam Today, 2004, ISBN 1-8401-8837-5
• The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, 2005, ISBN 0-3123-2700-5
• Risking Utopia: On the edge of a new democracy, 1997, ISBN 1-5505-4434-9

Articles

• "What Word Comes to Mind?" at Library and Archives Canada

Film

• Faith without Fear a 2007 PBS documentary produced by Irshad Manji that documents the pervasive Islamism she finds during her travels through Muslim communites in Yemen, Europe and North America and the personal risk she has taken in her life as her result of her calls for reform and human rights in the Muslim world.^[16]

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Asra Nomani
• Raquel Evita Saraswati

• Irshad Manji's Official Website
• Irshad's Myspace Page
• Project Ijtihad's MySpace Page
• Truth and Consquences - 2004 profile of Manji in Toronto Life magazine by Geraldine Sherman
• Interview with Andrew Denton
• Critique of Manji from a socialist perspective
• Muslim reformists threaten the faith
• Free and Equal under the Qur'an - an analysis by Havva G Guney-Ruebenacker
• Thanks but no thanks: Irshad Manji's book is for Muslim-haters, not Muslims by Tarek Fatah
• The Missionary Position, a book review by Laila Lalami
• The trouble with à la carte critics Manji's response to Fatah
• Irshad Manji: Long list of articles and interviews
• Denial is scourge of Islam
• Critique of Manji from an Islamic perspective
• Debate with As'ad AbuKhalil Debate with As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, on the 2006 cartoon controversy and the worldwide protests.
• Irshad Manji interview:Muslims need critical thinking
• Profile: Irshad Manji and further discussion Manning the Firewalls
• "How to be a Muslim Reformer"
• "The Trouble with the Trouble: Irshad Manji and the Cost of Progressive Islam" - Book Review by Haroon Moghul
• Manji on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Irshad Manji on The Hour
• Irshad Manji discusses the controversy in Europe over hymenoplasty, online from CBC Words at Large (audio)
• "The Trouble with Irshad Manji"
• "Manji - Another Pawn Advanced"