A Skeptical Muslim

Irshad Manji can teach proud skeptics a thing or two about moral courage.

Yesterday, I'd never heard of this lady. By chance, I caught a radio interview with her. I immediately sensed I was hearing something very special.

Irshad is a bit unusual -- A lesbian Muslim who openly challenges Muslims to think for themselves. She questions the entire foundation and history of Islam from the inside. This gets her into a lot of hot water. When I went to see her talk last night at the Calgary Public Library, she had a uniformed police guard sitting very prominently in the front row.

Enlightened skepticism flows from this lady like a fire hose.  Among many of her ideas (read her books!) are:

• The Arabs have colonized the Muslim world, hijacking the very soul of the religion.  Most Muslims are not Arabs, but they follow the Arab interpretation of Islam blindly, which includes the "meme" that what the Arabs say should be accepted without question. Ishad asks a lot of questions, which is why she is worth mentioning in this blog
• Questioning authority is more than permitted in Islam -- it is required. What's more we have a duty to be vocal in our questioning, to be (in my words, not hers) "shit disturbers".
• Islam is not hopelessly stuck in mindless fundamentalism. Changes have happened in the  past and will come in the future, but real reform may take centuries as it did in Christianity. We need to take the long view and push for change where change is possible now. 

Arab" Islam cuts Muslims (especially women) off from the world. We need to start with the simple faith and common sense these folks already have, which means starting with helping them to learn about their own faith (learning to read, reading the Koran in their own language etc.). Irshad is full of ideas about how to bring enlightenment and progress on a very broad front to all people everywhere, starting from where they are now. Irshad herself has chosen to aim her skepticism at issues that her fellow Muslims (and she herself) will be able to tackle. Like many Christian apologists, she assumes that the core of her is true and right, but has been corrupted and hijacked by people chiefly interested in maintaining their own power. She does not dig deeper and ask the truly fundamental questions, such as "Is there a God at all?" If she went that far, she'd lose any shred of credibility with the people she's trying to reach and, I suspect, would find the very ground of her convictions shifting beneath her feet.

Her presentation last night was electrifying.  Barely able to sit still in her seat, she passionately explained her point of view and met all challenges with confidence and impressive integrity.

If you ask me, one Skeptical believer like Irshad will do more good in the long run than an army of iconoclasts like Richard Dawkins who, while being quite right in what he says, fails to respect his audience enough to speak to the issues in terms the average person can connect to his or her daily life and personal world view. For example, by saying that religious training for children is "child abuse", Dawkins guarantees that whatever else he has to say will fall on deaf ears for millions of well meaning folks who are simply not ready for that kind of message. I believe that Irshad would address the same issue by finding practical ways to encourage open and informed discussion in religious education -- something that is "doable" and will move us all a little closer to the light, one step at a time.

Irshad, on behalf of the shit disturbers of the world, I salute you.