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Posted on 08 September 2011 |
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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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INTERVIEW |
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I do ask God: ‘Please don’t let my mother have to bury me’
Islamic reformist, thinker and author Irshad Manji teaches Moral Courage at New York University's Robert F Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and has possibly received as many, death threats as Salman Rushdie. Manji’s previous book, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith earned her international recognition and the tag ‘Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare’. Her second book Allah, Liberty and Love will probably earn her a new one: ‘The Muslim Zen master’. Her new book aimed towards helping both Muslims and non Muslims realise that dogma and faith are different things. Forty-three-year old Manji, a Canadian citizen of Ugandan Gujrati-Egyptian parentage, grew up in Canada where the family fled to, during Idi Amin’s pogrom targeting Asians, when she was 10. She studied in both secular and religious institutions. Her intrinsic need to confront and question her reading of Islam earned her an expulsion from the religious school, and as a writer has earned her foes and fans in equal numbers. Manji tells Karuna John that she has faith that Muslims are better than what the mullahs give them credit for.
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Forty-three-year old Manji, a Canadian citizen of Ugandan Gujrati-Egyptian parentage, grew up in Canada where the family fled to, during Idi Amin’s pogrom targeting Asians, when she was 10. She studied in both secular and religious institutions. |
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Why do you say you have moved from anger to aspiration in this new book?
This new book is responding to questions that I have been encountering from young people—both Muslim and non Muslim—who are often living in fear for speaking their truth. I literally needed to take many journeys to bring together the material that serves as a reality check. Over the last 10 years I’ve come to see that I’m not alone in a hunger for reform in Islam, it is something that is shared deeply. I’ll tell you something that I have not put in the book – because of the commercial success of The Trouble with Islam Today, my publishers were lovingly nagging me to publish another one. But there was a transformation going on within me as a thinker, as a Muslim, as a woman, that I couldn’t put language to. Now, I can definitively tell you that transformation was from anger to aspiration. I [still] think injustice needs to be confronted. The cultural crimes committed in the name of Allah must be confronted. If modern Muslims say Islam means peace, I want to tell them, you better behave as if that is true.
There can be no solutions if we cannot have an honest conversation. I’m not interested in dialogue for the sake of dialogue; I’m interested in dialogue for the sake of honesty.
Are you reinterpreting the Koran?
No, I am seeking to take those verses in the Koran that most Muslims have not even thought about. And remind them that here are the most freedom-friendly verses. Why do we ignore those verses? What tells us that we must cower before [both] moderates and fundamentalists? My interpretation is far more humane and better, in the way that it leads to the final truth that there is one entity. Both moderates and fundamentalists presume to have the final truth.
Why do you day that there has been an Arabisation of Islam?
It is Arabisation. I will go one step further – it is imperialism, a colonisation of Muslims by Muslims, an Arab cultural imperialism. Our culture and faith have become intertwined. We have to act as if there is a separation. I am challenging my fellow Muslims to behave that the two are separate. I have faith that the members of my religion are better than the mullahs give them credit for.
Have we become too politically correct about faith?
People fear being labeled as bigots, racist and Islamophobes if they ask uncomfortable questions. I have to say I find that despicable. Civility and honesty can coexist. Faith does not mean dogma. Dogma is afraid, dogma deserves to be threatened by questions. Faith is secure enough to handle questions. Dogma is brittle and snaps under scrutiny. Dogmatists fear of having their absolute shaken.
What is the one thing you are scared of?
The only thing I am afraid of is that I do worry every day of dying before my mother does. My mother, like all mothers, has made her three girls the centre of her life. I do ask God: ‘Please don’t let my mother have to bury me.’ It’s difficult if you have a mission that attracts death threats. I do not expect my mother to agree with how I do what I do. I want her to have faith that if I am taken before her, my conscience will be alive.
Karuna John is Associate Editor, Tehelka.com.
karuna@tehelka.com
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