The Trouble with Islam Today is... Muslims.

This book is an open letter from me, a Muslim voice of change, 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 by Muslims;
• the Jew-bashing in which so many Muslims persistently engage; and
• the continuing scourge of slavery in countries ruled by Islamist 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 today is literalism mainstream. Which means that when abuse happens under the banner of Islam, most Muslims have no clue how to dissent, debate, or reform ourselves.

The Trouble with Islam Today shatters our silence. It shows Muslims how we can re-discover Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking -- known as"ijtihad" -- and re-discover it precisely to update Islamic practices for the 21st century. The opportunity to update is especially available to Muslims in the West, because it's there that we enjoy precious freedoms to think, express, challenge and be challenged without fear of state reprisal. In that sense, the Muslim reformation begins in the West.

It doesn't, however, end there. Not by a long shot. People throughout the Islamic world need to know of their God-given right to think for themselves. So The Trouble with Islam Today outlines a global campaign to promote pluralistic and progressive approaches to Islam. I call this non-military campaign "Operation Ijtihad." In turn, the West's support of this campaign will fortify national security, making Operation Ijtihad a priority for all of us who wish to live fatwa-free lives.

That's the book. The question now becomes: What possessed me to write it? Once I tell you a little about me, I think you'll see where my own passion comes from.

Why I'm struggling

As refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda, my family and I settled just outside of Vancouver in 1972. I grew up attending two types of schools: the secular public school of most North American kids and then, for several hours at a stretch every Saturday, the Islamic religious school ( madressa).

I couldn't quite reconcile the open and tolerant world of my public school with the rigid and bigoted world inside my madressa. But I had enough faith to ask questions -- plenty of them.

My first question for my madressa teacher was, "Why can't girls lead prayer?" I graduated to asking more nuanced questions, such as, "If the Quran came to Prophet Muhammad as a message of compassion, why did he command his army to banish an entire Jewish tribe?"

You can imagine that such questions irritated the hell out of my madressa teacher, who routinely put down women and trashed the Jews. He and I reached the ultimate impasse over yet another question: "Where," I asked, "is the evidence of the 'Jewish conspiracy' against Islam? You love to talk about it, but what's the proof?" That question, posed at the age of 14, got me booted out of the madressa. Permanently.

At this point, I had a choice to make: I could walk away from my Muslim faith and get on with "emancipation," or I could give Islam another chance. Out of fairness to my faith, I gave Islam another chance. And another. And another. For the past 20 years, I've been educating myself about Islam. As a result, I've discovered a enlightened side of my religion -- in theory.

But I remain outspoken for change because of what's happening "on the ground" -- massive human rights violations, particularly against women and minorities -- in the name of Allah.

Moderate Muslims insist that what I'm describing isn't "true" Islam. But these Muslims should own up to something: Prophet Muhammad himself said that religion is the way we conduct ourselves toward others. By that standard, how we Muslims behave is Islam, and to sweep that reality under the rug of theory is to absolve ourselves of any responsibility for reforming ourselves.

That's why I speak out. That's why I'm passionate. And that's why I call myself a Muslim Refusenik.

A Muslim Refusenik is...

By Muslim Refusenik, I don't mean I refuse to be a Muslim. If I did, why would I care enough to write a book that puts me on the front lines of anger, hate, even death threats? By Muslim Refusenik, I mean I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah.  Many Muslims applaud Jewish Refuseniks -- those soldiers who protest the military occupation of the West Bank. In the same spirit of conscientious dissent, we must protest the ideological occupation of Muslim minds.  It's an occupation perpetrated by our own mullahs, imams and civic leaders.

In that spirit, I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very diversity that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place?

My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam today?

The Trouble with Islam Today is a wake-up call for honesty and change on everybody's part.

• Khaleel Mohammed, imam and professor of Islam at San Diego State University: "Irshad wants us to do what our Holy Book wants us to do: End the tribal posturing, open our eyes, and stand up to oppression, even if it's rationalized by our vaunted imams."

• Khaled Almeena, Editor, Arab News (Saudi Arabia): "This fraudulent book has now become a guide to Islam."

• Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist: "The democratic movements that have now emerged have shown just how many young Muslims want to give voice to their aspirations and achieve their full potential. If you want to get a taste of what they sound like, read Irshad Manji…"

• Jane Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at Harvard University: "All is not lost if people of Irshad Manji’s capacity can carry a fresh and convincing message to the coming generation. I cannot urge her more strongly to maintain her frank, open, and intelligent approach. This cause is, I believe, the most important new movement in several decades."

                           

Irshad Manji is the internationally best-selling author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in her Faith.  Through a new lens, this questioning Muslim takes a journey to reconcile her faith in Allah with her love of freedom.  Along the way, she reveals the personal risks — emotional and physical — that come with such an urgent mission.  The result is FAITH WITHOUT FEAR.

Trekking through the Arabian peninsula, Manji speaks with Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, who explains why he’s willing to turn his young son into a martyr.  She also engages a California convert to Islam who now lives in Yemen and says that by covering her body and face, she’s exercising American-style freedom of religion. But is it really freedom if you’ll be punished for not covering? Manji meets one Yemeni woman who faces a steep price for rejecting the rules. Through them, Manji discovers what she thinks has corrupted a religion of justice to become an ideology of fear. She can relate: Her own home has bullet-proof windows.

With death threats stripping Muslims of their God-given right to free expression, Manji heads West for potential solutions. In the Netherlands, she sits down with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Member of Parliament and fellow dissident who, unlike Manji, has left Islam.  Marked by rage, blood and a ritual murder, Ayaan’s story sheds light on how the fear is spreading — and whether it can be confronted. Manji then forays into the world of poor, young, disaffected Dutch Muslims.  She leaves with a crucial lesson about why debate must replace violence if Muslims are to save themselves.

But is debate possible in Islam? That question brings Manji to Spain, where different religions, cultures and ideas flourished under Muslim civilization. It happened because of “ijtihad,” Islam’s own tradition of independent thinking. She shows the art, architecture and achievements that Muslims could once claim.  In so doing, Manji finally encounters the Islam that she can love. Far from being a relic of the past, ijtihad is key to curbing atrocities committed today in the name of Islam. Manji introduces us to two Spanish Muslims who represent the humanity that ijtihad can restore to Islam, and the cruelty that Muslims will suffer at the hands of other Muslims if ijithad remains buried.

Throughout this high-stakes journey, Manji challenges herself to change.  Wondering if her heart is blocked to the beauty of Islam, she invites one of her fiercest Muslim critics to break bread — and what she takes away aren’t crumbs.  Yet Manji’s greatest epiphany comes from her pious mother. They don’t see eye to eye.  But her mom’s dignified response in a moment of humiliation teaches Manji that Muslims can, in fact, have faith without fear.  Islam allows it, if only Muslims will too.