Irshad Manji: Faith without Fear

When Irshad Manji wants you to understand something, which she does quite often, the colour of her arresting brown eyes seems to intensify. Their shade at once deepens and shines. Her posture remains perfectly upright, while her whole body leans in and lengthens itself to one finger pointing directly at your heart while she speaks.

“I do not live with fear;” she says clearly and slowly, “Not because I have nothing to be afraid of, nor do I invite violence or hate. I refuse to live with fear. It is not part of my life.”

Courage is often required for Irshad to speak publicly, but she feels the importance of her work outweighs personal risk. After all, she little more reason to be afraid today than she did as a young girl, abused by her father and threatened by her educators at a private religious school. She has also taken great risks in her career; first in following her elected member of parliament to Ottawa, and later as the openly gay anchor of a national television show. Irshad is driven, insatiably curious, passionate about her cause, and fearless.

She is also defiantly loyal to a faith that provokes conscience-shaking acts. Irshad believes that the Muslim faith is an important and inherently good one, which can and will adapt to modern human rights and multicultural values. She prays every day and follows Ramadan. For her insistence on Western liberal values aligning to her faith, she is charged with disrespect and self-hate. She insists that the faithful must embrace and survive modern challenges to survive; that is the criteria for legitimacy that a global generation requires.

But since publishing and speaking about Islam’s relationship to the Western world (and vice versa), the nature of that risk has changed. Her home includes a top-notch security system and bullet proof windows. Death threats come in regularly - though mundanely by e-mail - from around the world and from within her own city.

“A book is worth more than a life,” Salman Rushdie once told her, providing the final push to write her controversial bestseller, The Trouble with Islam Today.

She speaks freely and often, with engagements in over a dozen countries per year. A new documentary, Faith without Fear, follows Irshad at home with her Mom and in dialogue with Muslims around the world. In Canada, she mentors students in human rights and public policy at the Pierre Trudeau Foundation in Montreal. Last year she lectured at Yale University; and this year she is creating a curriculum with NYU at the Wagner School of Public Leadership. Her foundation, Project Ijtihad, encourages young Muslims to engage in thoughtful debate about Islam, and to lead a global reformation of the faith.

While North American militaries are fully engaged in Islamic nations of the Middle East, Irshad’s talk is serious, her work is serious and there are, of course, serious reactions. So it is lucky for all of us that she’s got a wicked sense of humour. Her new documentary, for example, shows Irshad trying on a full burqa with the help of an Afghan tailor. “You know, I have always wanted someone to dress me,” she remarks dryly. Her comment escapes him and he removes her glasses in order to cover her face with a black veil. “Talk about blind faith,” she says, giving him a friendly nudge. He smiles and nods, though it’s hard to know if he understands.

Born in Uganda, Irshad Manji and her family were among thousands forced into exile by the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin after 1970. She was four years old when the Manji family landed in the mildest part of Canada, Richmond British Columbia. Irshad attended public school along with the traditional Islamic madrassah, where an inherent gender bias and a few anti-Semitic teachers did not sit well with the girl from upscale and ethnically diverse Richmond.

Two very strong personality traits developed in those early years – a love of liberal democracy, and an insatiable desire to question the world around her. She quit her formal Islamic studies at the age of fourteen. Her mother, a guiding force and mentor throughout her life, was horrified by supportive.

At 22 years old, Irshad completed an Honours Bachelor of Arts, majoring in intellectual history, at the University of British Columbia. She worked for her local Member of Parliament, following her to Ottawa as a legislative assistant. She was a speechwriter for the New Democratic Party and then a national affairs columnist at the Ottawa Citizen – “the youngest member of an editorial board for any Canadian daily” at the age of 24. Two years later she published her first book, Risking Utopia. She made the shift from publishing to television, hosting several programs and engaging in public debate with well-known conservative figures like Michael Coren. Between 1997 and 2001, Irshad co-produced the Gemini-nominated series QT: QueerTelevision with media giant Moses Znaimer, among others. It was Znaimer who re-opened her personal challenge to the Muslim faith by demanding to know how she as a Muslim could condone practices of stoning. After leaving the program she embarked on a quest for knowledge, eventually coming up with Trouble, subtitled A Muslim’s Call for Reform in her Faith.

Her role models, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, have taught her to be unafraid of ruffling feathers within her own community, a message she passes on in her public engagements and on her blog, IrshadManji.com. She is connected to an international network of academics and activists, and delivers free online translations if her work within censored nations. The feedback from young Muslims has been encouraging.

“You know,” she says suddenly, as we stroll down a quiet Toronto street, “Not every little event or article seems important, but when you do have the chance to reach a large audience, it is an amazing feeling. It is a really incredible thing.” With that thought her energy returns and we say goodbye. She is already thinking of the next talk, the next chance, and the next audience she hopes to inspire.