According to Manji, tyrants have hijacked Islam and gotten Muslims to stop thinking critically about their religion, their traditions, and their practices. She asks:
- "Who is the real colonizer of Muslims - America or Arabia? Why are we all being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? Why are we squandering the talents of women, fully half of God's creation? What's our excuse for reading the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous? Is that a heart attack you're having? Make it fast. Because if more of us don't speak out against the imperialists within Islam, these guys will walk away with the show."
Being a very personal book, it is filled with anecdotes - and not everyone will feel that anecdotes really prove anything about Islam. They would have a point, but the fact of the matter is that these anecdotes can be repeated over and over by many different people. Manji's experiences are not anomalous. The "trouble" with Islam is not simply the tyrants who have hijacked it, but the average Muslims who have allowed this to happen and have retreated into self-pity and victimhood.
Some may also be put off by the "hip" tone of her book - it's not a scholarly book on Islamic doctrine and history, but it also isn't meant to be. It's a book about Islam as it has been lived by a real person, and that's important because Islam *is what people live and do as Muslims. What we read, then, is Islam as it actually is for real people, not an idealized version in an academic text.
The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith
Manji is paying the price for this book. She has been deluged with hate mail and attacked as not being a "real" Muslim (which ignores the fact that, if someone adheres to the Five Pillars, not only are they a Muslim but others are committing a sin by questioning that). Neither women nor homosexuals have had much of a voice in the Muslim community, but she is changing that very dramatically. I hope that this represents the beginning of a trend, because it is only through the tolerance of internal diversity that Islam will stop having so much trouble with the diversity external to it as well.
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