Is anyone here familiar with this writer? Have you read her book “The Trouble With Islam Today”
Re: Irshad Manji
isn't she a lesbian who claims to be a muslim and is talking about reforming Islam? Oh the irony :)
Re: Irshad Manji
I don't know about her sexual preference....but she does consider herself a Muslim Refusenik. And yes, that does mean that she talks about reforming Islam.
How do you know about her?
Re: Irshad Manji
Can we Leave aside her personal life.
I heard her few times on TV and found her smart, intelligent and hot
Re: Irshad Manji
she is on the womens network
Re: Irshad Manji
fair & balance,
What do you think about her views on women in Islam?
Re: Irshad Manji
Shown below is an excerpt from an interview of Irshad Manji. The whole interview is posted on her website: http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/index.html
- You are a Canadian, lesbian, feminist and Muslim at the same time. How is that happening?
Irshad answers: Well, the Prophet himself was a Muslim and a feminist, so I do not think that is such an odd combination. As for my nationality, my mother’s family comes from Egypt and and my father’s from India. I was born in Uganda. How did I wind up in Canada? Uganda’s Idi Amin - a Muslim - expelled thousands of others Muslims from our native land. I take pride in being a refugee. Again, the Prophet himself experienced the joys and pain of migration. I am happy to have landed in a country where, as a Muslim woman, I can dream big dreams and realize most of my potential.
Now to the really controversial part: lesbian. I could have been dishonest and hidden that part of myself. But as a creature of Allah, I decided it is better to pay tribute to God’s wisdom. I acknowledge that the Quran contains passages implying that homosexuality can not be tolerated. It also contains passages implying that Allah knows what He is doing when he designs the world’s breathtaking diversity. In addition to the verse that says, “God makes excellent everything He creates,” there are other verses that say “God creates whom He will” and that nothing God creates is “in vain.” How do my critics reconcile those statements with their utter condemnation of homosexuals?
Notice I am not saying that I am right – I do not know that I am right. The question is: what makes my critics so sure they are right? And in claiming to be right, how do they know they are not usurping God’s jurisdiction as the supreme judge and jury?
There is something else worth pointing out. Those Muslims who insist that one perspective must take precedence over another, if only for the sake of social order, neglect another question: how do we know it is the anti-gay verses that take precedence over all else? Why don’t the pro-diversity verses get that honour?
It seems to me that no matter how you slice it, Muslims who wish to live “by the book” have no choice but to make choices about what to emphasize and what to downplay. Selectiveness is inevitable. I recognize my own selectiveness, but at least I am honest enough to admit it.
And so I select – I choose – to see the bigger point that the Quran makes about diversity: “If God had pleased, he would have made you all one people. But he has done otherwise, that he might try you in what he has given to you.” In my view, what a passage like this shows is not just the virtue of tolerating difference. It shows that pluralism is both divine and deliberate. If that is a far-fetched interpretation, then it is a mistake for which I shall pay on the Day of Judgment.
Meanwhile, I am NOT asking Muslims to accept my sexuality. I do not seek anybody’s approval except for that of my Creator. God made me and only God can unravel me. All I do ask Muslims to accept is that the there is room, even in the Quran, for debate about this and many more issues.
Re: Irshad Manji
Muzna, she no doubt has a functional brain, however, she follows partial or incomplete logic in formulating her opinions. If you read her writings/opinions in a stretch, you might end up agreeing with her on (quite) a few things. But critically analyzing her arguments reveals that she is 'more wrong than right'
Re: Irshad Manji
She is a waste of time. She's just doing it for the publicity. She knows that without all her bull**** no one would waste their time with her. She would've been a failed writer.
It's easy to bash Islam and create a name for oneself. All she does in her book is to mock Islam without offering any new insights or solutions. Her book does not help one to understand the Islamic world or how it can be improved. As one Western reviewer said: "all one gets is a litany of platitudes served up in a sauce of glib mockery of the religion." Nothing new, nothing helpful. Just Manji's cheap attempt to become a celebrity.
Re: Irshad Manji
I agree with wunderkind.
I've seen her debates with various Muslim scholars on CBC Newsworld. No doubt, she is very passionate about her views, but I really don't see any difference between her and other "terrorist" type fanatics. She's just on the other side of the spectrum.
She takes a line or verse from the Quran, completely misinterprets it and uses that as her justification to malign Islam. The discussion I saw with her had 3 other scholars at the table, one converted gora, one west Indian woman and some one else, I can't remember. Everybody tried explaining the context of the text Manji was misinterpreting, but Manji basically wouldn't listen and kept 'screaming' (raising her voice, trying to drown the others out) ... basically, she's determined to see Islam in a very negative light and there is no reasoning with someone like that.
I understand she has had some extremely bad experiences - going to a madrassah as a child, being hit for asking questions and thrown out .... being a lesbian and ostracized by the Muslim community ... well, that's quite sad but no reason to blame the religion. Her issues are more people/cultural related, and she blames religion for it. One of her biggest arguments during the interview that I watched was that Islam is anti-women, and anybody who is knowledgeable of the Quran knows that is not true. We do have rights. Unfortunately, cultural practices in some parts of the world are more predominant, yet she blames Islam for it.
Her book came out after 9/11, so no doubt, she became super famous. The media has done a good job of hyping her up.
Re: Irshad Manji
The less attention you give people like such. The faster they die.
Re: Irshad Manji
Is there anything left after the so called ‘acknowledgement’. I guess not.
It is extremely selfish to take half liners from Quran, like the one below, to fit your agenda. I have observed that women who have too much to yap and nothing substantial to say are very vocal about their feminist and/or lesbian status.
Re: Irshad Manji
Hey now, don’t equate feminism with the lesbian lifestyle. They are definitely not the same.
As a feminist, I think the girl is a quack. 
Re: Irshad Manji
Well, isn’t that the “Muslim way” to deal with things. Good going.
Re: Irshad Manji
I've skimmed through her bookt.
The book is essentially a collection of polemics that eerily echo right-wing criticisms of Islam. Rather than weigh the critiques in a balanced manner, she accepts them wholesale as her own.
She is unabashedly pro-Israel, refusing (being a refusnik I suppose) to accept that the Palestinians are victims of any sort. She goes so far as to accuse Muslims of being complicit (read: PARTICIPATED IN) the Holocaust. Her writings definitely have an anti-Arab tone, being borderline racist. She refuses to acknowledge Muslim grievances against Western policy during and after the cold war, and is somewhat mum on colonialism.
On the spiritual front, she does not believe the Quran to be the literal word of God.
Given the harshness and single-sidedness of her critique, she seems to have usurped the narrative among moderate and Islamist Muslims who seek to revisit Ijtehad, and uses it as a platform to take sarcastic pot shots at Islam and Muslims. I agree with Tarek Fatah on this one, who observes that in effect she seeks to make Muslim haters feel secure in their hate.
Re: Irshad Manji
Ahh Irshad Manji, the perfect poster child of the West. Like picocio said above, it takes just a mere glance at her work to realize there isn't much substance.
Living one's life is one's own business but attempting to pass off your twisted views as the "real deal" is a grave sin.
Re: Irshad Manji
People ,,,,,,,
You have discussed this issue at least 10 different times on this website ever time the same points come up
1. She was never Muslim to begin with (in the conventional sense)......... Her family is Ismaili and the Ismaili community has banished her.
2. She works for the Global Media Network in Canada. The Global Network is owned by the family of ISREAL Asper, an extremist Zionist Jew who has a wing of a University named after him in Israeli Occupied Jerusalem. His papers have published overtly anti-Palestinian\Arab opinion pieces in the past that have caused quite an uproar from human rights\free press types.
She is essentially a paid media whore that is used by Global to sponsor opinions created at higher levels. Being of Ismaili African origin she has no relation to mainstream Islam that a regular non-Muslim wouldn’t have. She has absolutely no “insider” perspective, contrary to her gimmick. Grew up in Canada, parents came from a non-Muslim part of Africa (Uganda or Tanzania I think)
I say this with absolutely no bias because she has every right to say what she wishes this is a democratic free society. We in turn have every right to completely ignore her after recognizing that she is a intellectual whore (should I say pseudo-intellectual?) with absolutely no ideas or opinions of her own. To say the least she’s old news in Canada. She’s been doing the University circuit for years with less than a handful of people showing up at her talks.
Re: Irshad Manji
I can't believe you actually bothered to read her book. You can just look at the facts. She is talking about reforming Islam, and she is a lesbian and claims that Islam is okay with lesbianism. That alone should tell you she's lost it.
Re: Irshad Manji
Just one thing folks.....
Please, when you quote from my post, ensure that it is clear where my words are being quoted and where Manji's are being quoted. I don't want there to be any ambiguity in this regard.
I know that this is asking a little extra.....but it will be appreciated.
Thanks.
What scares me about Irshad is that her passion for what may be a real cause is largely dismissed because of her other characteristics. And what is even more frightening is skhan's comment, "the perfect poster child for the west" may well be accurate.