Category : World
Service
Date : 19.03.2004
Printable version
Moderate
Muslims have not been vocal enough in denouncing terror says the outspoken
Muslim author and journalist, Irshad Manji, says in an interview
on 大象传媒 World Service.
She tells Carrie Gracie in The Interview that she believes
Islam is capable of reform but that, without it, she would consider
leaving the religion.
听
"What keeps me inside the faith is my love of ijtihad
and the belief that Islam is capable of being reformed. At least at
this point, to walk away would feel like running away."
听
"If I do not see an appetite
for reform among my fellow Muslims in the West, then I may very well
have to consider leaving the religion.
听
"Not because I think this will be some kind of
threat to anyone 聳 in fact more than a few Muslims will get up
and applaud if I leave 聳 but because my own integrity and conscience
would not allow me to become complicit in a belief system that I would
at that point have to conclude is hurting too many people too much of
the time."
听
Irshad Manji was born in Uganda and left for Canada
as a refugee with her family.
听
She is as well-known in North America for her television
shows as for her provocative writing.
听
In her latest book, The Trouble with Islam, she examines
some of the foundations of Islam as it is practised, in blunt and personal
terms.
"We who define ourselves as moderate Muslims and as liberal Muslims
have not been nearly vocal enough in denouncing [that] terror.
听
"Moreover, Muslims have frankly been sanitising
the situation that we have among ourselves around the world and now,
in the West, where we have the precious freedoms to think and express
and challenge.
听
"We are not using those freedoms to speak out against
what is happening by Muslims against Muslims and now to much of the
rest of the world."
听
"The trouble with Islam in my view is literalism.
Every religion has its share of literalists. The trouble with Islam
is that only in this religion today is literalism mainstream worldwide.
听
"Even Muslims in the West are raised to believe
that because the Koran comes after the Torah and the Bible chronologically
it's the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God's will, not given
to the kinds of contradictions and ambiguities like all of those other
sacred texts.
听
"When abuse happens under the banner of my religion
most Muslims, including us moderates, have no clue how to debate, dissent,
revise or reform," she says.
听
The Interview with Irshad Manji will be on 大象传媒
World Service on Saturday 20 March at 7.32pm and on Sunday at 6.32am
and 1.32pm.
