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Irhad Manji
She lives with death threats all the time. She loves her faith in Islam. But she isn't getting a lot of love back because of her stances.
http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/index.html
About Irshad Manji - Irshads photo album
Irshad is the best-selling author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslims Call for Reform in Her Faith. It has been published internationally, including in Pakistan, Turkey, India and Lebanon. In those countries that have banned The Trouble with Islam Today, she is reaching readers by posting free translations in Arabic, Urdu, and Persian on this website.
She also travels the globe to lecture about the liberal reformation of Islam. Her audiences include Amnesty International, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the United Nations Press Corps, the Democratic Muslims of Denmark, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the International Womens Forum, the Swedish Defense Research Agency, the Pentagon, the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute, and universities from Cambridge to Notre Dame.
Currently, Irshad is a Senior Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy. She writes columns that are distributed worldwide by the New York Times Syndicate. She is also making a feature film about Islam. Among the ideas it will showcase is ijtihad, Islams lost tradition of independent thinking.
As a social entrepreneur, Irshad has launched Project Ijtihad, an initiative to develop the worlds first leadership network for reform-minded Muslims. In that capacity, she was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Oprah Winfrey honored Irshad with the first annual Chutzpah Award for audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction. Ms. magazine chose Irshad as a Feminist for the 21st Century. Macleans, Canadas national news magazine, selected her one of ten Canadians Who Make a Difference.
And the Jakarta Post in Indonesia -- the worlds largest Muslim country -- identified Irshad as one of three women creating a positive change in Islam today.
After graduation, Irshad became legislative assistant to a member of parliament, then press secretary to the Ontario Minister for Womens Issues. In 1992, at age 24, she entered the media as National Affairs Editorialist for the Ottawa Citizen, the youngest person to sit on the editorial board of a Canadian daily newspaper. She left to take up the post of speechwriter for the first female leader of a Canadian political party.
From there, Irshad went on to write Risking Utopia: On the Edge of a New Democracy. Published in 1997, it chronicles how young people are re-defining democracy in an age of fluid media networks, shifting social values and flexible personal identities. Today, Risking Utopia is widely used by Canadian educators to re-imagine public schooling.
Despite her multi-media approach, books remain Irshads passion. With the release of The Trouble with Islam Today, Irshads ideas are capturing international attention. That means condemnation as well praise. As Indonesias Jakarta Post writes, She not only has a funky hairdo, but The Trouble with Islam Today has caused much debate. Heres a sample of the debate:
- Khaleel Mohammed, an imam and professor of Islam at San Diego State University: 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).
- Khaled Almeena, Editor, Arab News (Saudi Arabia): This fraudulent book has now become a guide to Islam...
- Tarek Heggy, world-renowned author/lecturer based in Cairo: I read the Arabic translation with a level of fascination and admiration that rarely occurs after a 45-year journey into Islamic study. Her book captivated me fully, touching my mind, conscience, and heart.
- Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at Harvard University: 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.
- Andrew Sullivan, TIME columnist who reviewed Irshads book for the New York Times and concluded: If we survive this current war without unthinkable casualties, it will be because Irshad Manjis kind of liberalism didnt lose its nerve.