April 8,2016
Irshad Manji: The Trouble with Islam; A Muslim’s Call for Reform
Irshad Manji wrote her book The Trouble with Islam in 2003 - 2004 as an open letter. The author expressed her doubts and questions to the Muslim and non - Muslim people regarding the rigidity of Islam religion, seeking true answers. Muslim-born author Menji outlined major challenges for modern Muslims in order to get better and get rid of outdated traditions.
According to Manji, Muslims keep practicing outdated traditions that make many Muslim countries stay backward. In 1972, as a four year old girl, she arrived to Richmond, a middle-class suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia with her family. They flew to the West from Uganda, Africa where the dictator General Dada, proclaiming that Africa is for the blacks, left no other choice to millions of South Asian Muslims except immigration. They had to choose between immigration and death if they left in Uganda. In Richmond she attended the local public school and on Saturdays she spent several hours in Islamic religious school (madressa). She hardly understood the difference between the open tolerant climate in her public school compared to the rigid world in the madressa and asked a lot of questions such as why the girls did not have the right to lead prayers and when she asked for the evidence of conspiracy of the Jews against the Muslims she irritated so much her Muslim teacher that he expelled her from the religious school permanently, at age of fourteen (Manji 54). The main themes Irshad Manji discussed in her book with utmost rectitude were: the inferior status of women in the Islamic world; the constant striking on Jews in which the Muslims were permanently engaged; the continuing inhumanity in maintaining the slavery in the countries ruled by the Muslims.
The lower status of women in the Islam world is a subject of discussions for many years over and over again. The author described the story told by a friend from Saudi Arabia telling about a woman who was arrested for wearing red on Valentine’s day, and she asked herself why would the “merciful God outlaw joy – or fun?” (Manji, p.1) or the story of another woman who was killed with stones for “adultery” (Ibid) The Islam women were permanently in a state of subordination towards men. They had no rights or privileges. Manji grew up in Canada, and she knew no limitations inflicted upon ordinary Muslim girls who lived in Uganda and other Muslim countries. At that point, Manji's arguments are quite persuasive because the author felt no pressure on behalf of harsh Muslim male-dominated society. In my point of view, Manji is quite persuasive because she provided lots of evidence on violating Muslim women's rights in Africa and Middle East. Although Manji addresses her book to wide audience, both Muslim and non-Muslim, the Western reader can also understand the problems inflicted upon Muslim immigrants better. Since Manji feels social pressure inflicted upon Muslim immigrants in the Western countries, she tries to explain the reasons of why Muslims got used to some certain behavioral patterns. The Western mainstream media often portray Muslims as potential terrorists, but in reality most Muslims are just the same as Americans or Canadians (Manji 89). Irshad Manji felt she needed to combat devastating consequences of the media biases. For example, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump once suggested to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., and all peaceful Muslims like Manji at that point felt extremely humiliated because all Muslim immigrants to the U.S. were treated as terrorists by Trump. The Manji's book aimed to debunk various myths about Muslims. Hence, she had to provide lots of evidence about real stories of Muslims. She tried to explained hardships inflicted upon Muslims in the course of time. For example, British colonists used forced Arab labor in Southeast Africa in the nineteenth century.
The third main aspect is the slavery and the attitude of the Muslim people to those who serve them. She told the story of their servant and friend Tomasi and the attitude of her father to him and the severe punishments he imposed to him. And that was not an exception. As an example she told the story of the Arab people who were brought to Africa by the British to build the railways in Uganda. The Arab families settled there for generations. Many of them turned into well-benefiting merchants but as a contrast they did not allow the blacks to do the same.
Irshad Manji tried to provide the reader with simple explanation of why Muslims got used to som behavioral patterns. She collected various stories about hardships inflicted upon Muslim women, explaining why her family had to flee from Africa to Canada. At that point, the Manji's book could be useful for the Western-born audience in the first place. Western women often seem to stay reluctant to see the difference between life of women in Arab world and Western world. Manji's arguments were quite persuasive because she formed sequences of events, which eventually caused immigration of Muslims from Arab countries to the West.
Works Cited
Manji, Irshad. The Trouble With Islam. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004. Print.
