Muslim call for Islamic reformation

Muslim call for Islamic reformation
Irshad Manji plans progressive Muslim think-tank
London meeting to challenge fundamentalism

Irshad Manji speaks in London, London on 12 May 2005

Leading Muslim progressive Irshad Manji, well-known for her best-selling book ‘The Trouble With Islam’, will call for the establishment of an Islamic reform movement at a public meeting in London on 12 May 2005.

She will outline her plans for an international centre where Muslims can formulate and exchange liberal interpretations of the Quran “without fear of retaliation”.

The acclaimed Canadian-based author and broadcaster has already experienced death threats over her challenge to fundamentalist Islam.

Oprah Winfrey awarded Manji the "Chutzpah Award" for "audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction".

The New York Times describes Irshad Manji has "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare."

Ms. magazine named her a “Feminist for the 21st Century”.

On International Women's Day last month, the Jakarta Post in Indonesia cited Manji as one of three Muslim women making a positive change in Islam.

During her visit to London, Manji will argue: "My core message is that no community, no ethnicity, no culture and no religion ought to be immune from respecting the universality of human rights. This, of course, is a controversial message in an age of cultural relativism. Mine is a positive message of pluralism. I truly believe that we can be pluralists without becoming relativists.”

“Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now,” she writes in ‘The Trouble With Islam’.

Outlining her ‘Project Ijtihad’ (an Arabic word meaning “independent thinking”), Manji said: “This is an initiative, a foundation to help young people, and young reform-minded Muslims in particular, develop the courage to step up to the plate and say what’s on their mind.”

Irshad Manji will be bringing her message of Ijtihad and her perspectives on faith, politics and human rights to London on May 12 for a public speaking engagement in the Mahatma Gandhi Hall at the Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, London, W1 at 7 PM.

But Manji’s controversial message is met with mixed reactions, some extreme. Following the publication of her book, she received death threats reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ experience.

When Manji met Rushdie recently, the author reassured her that “whenever a writer puts out a thought, it can be disagreed with - vigorously, vehemently, even violently. But it cannot be un-thought. And that is the great, permanent gift that the writer gives to the world.”

Of the hostile reactions, Manji is philosophical: “There’s no doubt that some young Muslims detest me and my message of Ijtihad. They tend to be the vocal and vitriolic ones. But everywhere I go, I’m quietly approached by Muslims, especially young women, who are desperate to know that it’s possible to dissent with mainstream orthodoxy while remaining faithful. The challenge now is to help transform that underground hunger for change into an above-the-ground phenomenon,” she says.

"There are many more reform-minded Muslims out there, it's just that most of us are working in isolation. And so [we] need to develop these kinds of relationships, to rely on each other," she adds.

Manji’s honesty and courage has won her support even from her detractors. Khaleel Mohammed, a professor of religion at San Diego State University wrote the prologue to the US edition of ‘The Trouble With Islam’. He says:

“Let us face a simple fact. I should hate Irshad Manji. If Muslims listen to her, they will stop listening to people like me, an imam who spent years at a traditional Islamic university. She threatens my male authority and says things about Islam that I wish were not true. She has a big mouth, and fact upon fact to corroborate her analysis… But then I look into my heart and engage my mind, and I come to a discomfiting conclusion: Irshad is telling the truth.”

Irshad Manji speaks in London:
7 PM, Thursday 12 May 2005
Mahatma Gandhi Hall
Indian YMCA
41 Fitzroy Square
London W1T 6AQ

Tickets for the event cost £12 (or £7 concessions) and can be purchased online from faith-politics-humanrights.org or by calling the information hotline: 07913 026 766.

For more information about the London event: