I’m sure most of you must have seen, heard or are at least aware of the fact that Canadian lesbian Muslima Irshad Manji wrote “The Trouble with Islam Today“, a stunning bestseller (banned in virtually the entire Middle East) making abundantly clear that there is actually a need for a “liberal Islam“, based entirely on the Koran, while weeding out the repressive or pervasive cultural issues that appear to have no foundation in the scripture.
Her entire work is available as a free download online (text in Arabic, Urdu or Persian), especially for those of you living in less liberal countries.
If you happen to live in the US: PBS aired “Faith without fear” last week.
Quote from Irshad Manji:
—
“The Trouble with Islam Today is an open letter from me, a Muslim voice of reform, to concerned citizens worldwide, Muslim and not. It’s about why my faith community needs to come to terms with the diversity of ideas, beliefs and people in our universe, and why non-Muslims have a pivotal role in helping us get there.
The themes I’m exploring with the utmost honesty include: the inferior treatment of women in Islam; the Jew-bashing that so many Muslims persistently engage in; and the continuing scourge of slavery in countries ruled by Islamic regimes.
I appreciate that every faith has its share of literalists. Christians have their fundamentalists. Jews have the ultra-Orthodox. For God’s sake, even Buddhists have absolutists.
But what this book hammers home is that only in Islam is literalism mainstream. Which means that when abuse happens under the banner of Islam, most Muslims have no clue how to dissent, debate, revise or reform.
The Trouble with Islam Today shatters our silence. It shows Muslims how we can re-discover Islam’s lost tradition of independent thinking — a tradition known as “ijtihad” — and re-discover it precisely to update Islam for the 21st century.”
—
As a secular former Catholic myself, (the weddings and funerals only variety) I’m still waiting for a copy of “The trouble with Christianity today”, because let’s face it: almost each and every major religion continues to incite ongoing oppression and suffering worldwide, especially if one just happens to belong to a minority
This blog is not affiliated with or endorsed by the city of Antwerp, Belgium.
i have not heard of this work but plan to find it and read it.
I do feel that there is a need for more freedom for Islamic women and the practices that are endured by them.
Comment by C Vandiver — December 19, 2008 @ 7:22 am |
[...] – Article: Lesbian Faith without Fear here [...]
Pingback by Navigating Religion as A Lesbian Mom — February 23, 2009 @ 1:00 pm |