DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - MICHIGAN: IRSHAD MANJI IS GOING TO OFFEND MOSLEMS

Force for change in Islam is lightning rod for debate
Irshad Manji's film may rankle metro Muslims, but hey, even her loving mom can be a critic
March 1, 2007
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER

Irshad Manji is an internationally known Muslim activist and feminist whose new PBS documentary makes fun of Yemeni women who wear veils, argues that Muslims don't need to pray five times a day and accuses Muslim leaders around the world of being soft in their opposition to violence.

Until now, Manji's reputation as a provocateur sprang from her in-your-face Web site, http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/, and her best-selling memoir, "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in her Faith."

But tonight, Manji will appear in Detroit as part of a Public Broadcasting Service exploration of America, Islam and the war on terror. PBS is sponsoring a sneak peek of her documentary, "Faith Without Fear," which will be shown nationally in April. It is part of an effort to spark a fresh national discussion about global tensions.

Local Muslims who previewed Manji's film this week said they expect only curiosity and perhaps frustration at tonight's showing and talk.

"Some of what she says is good and Muslims here will agree with her, for example, on condemning violence," Farhan Latif, an admissions counselor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said after viewing the documentary. "Under no circumstance should she be receiving death threats."

But many of Manji's arguments attack the pillars of the faith, said Nadia Bazzy, an educator at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. "She likes to pick and choose the verses of the Quran she will follow and to decide for herself what truth will be," Bazzy said.

That is a pretty fair summary of Manji's ultimate goal. In her book, documentary and a phone interview last week, she talked about her hope for major reformation in Islam.

"I'm very, very much a believer in Allah, and this film, I'd like to say, is really about reconciling my love of Allah with my love of freedom," she said.

On her Web site, Manji, 38, of Toronto describes herself as a journalist turned activist who was dubbed by the New York Times as "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare." In a fresh posting on the site Tuesday, Manji renewed her intention to "engage, enrage, discuss and debate." But, by phone last week, she said she doesn't expect trouble in Detroit, partly because she'll have a formidable defender at her side: her mother.

If Manji seems fearless, her mother seems even stronger. Mumtaz Manji, 62, is a traditional Muslim who prays five times a day, covers her hair and attends community prayers at a mosque near her home in Vancouver.

In the documentary, Mumtaz Manji does her best to convince her daughter that she should pray five times a day.

Irshad Manji refuses, saying she'll pray when she feels like it and in her own words, not by reciting traditional prayers.

"On some things we just disagree," Mumtaz Manji said last week. "But what can I say? Some of what she says is right, some is not. But I will always love her. She is my daughter."

Mumtaz Manji is so tenacious in both her own faith and her support for her daughter that she once sat in silence through a sermon by a Muslim cleric as he denounced her daughter.

"I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me get up and leave," she said. "Afterward, people asked me, 'How could you sit there?'

"And I said, 'I'm not going to be driven away from my own faith.' They can say what they want, but this is my family."

Local Muslims echoed that response in describing their reaction to Irshad Manji's visit.

"So, Irshad will come here and she'll talk about rescuing Muslims from oppression and she'll offend Muslims here, because we don't feel that we're oppressed," Najah Bazzy, who works with youth at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, said after seeing the film. "But it won't change Islam and it won't change who we are."


Pertinent Links:

1) Force for change in Islam is lightning rod for debate