Rating: 
Summary: Own up
Review: It's amazing how sensitive Moslems are to criticism, see the diatribe of one reviewer who won't even acknowledge that some Moslems did support the Nazis (except for one!)It was said "According to Irshad Manji's rationale, because one Muslim Mufti accepted the hospitality of Hitler, after being expelled from Palestine by the British colonial authorities, all us 1.2 billion Muslims, a quarter of humanity, deserve to be accused of complicity in the Holocaust." One Muslim Mufti seems not to be proof of 'complicity', yet the same writter uses as a defence that some Muslims fought against Hitler, and conversely that some Christians fought for him. The west has acknowledged that some people supported Hitler, however this person, rather than acknowledging that any Muslim aided Hitler, simply turns this criticism around into an attack. There were many Moslems who supported the Axis powers, including said Mufti of Jersualem, and also such luminaries as Nasser and Sadat. Islam is by it's nature, anti-Jewish, given the tennets of the Koran urging Muslims to turn on Jews. That millions of Moslems did not obey this call is not a credit to Islam, but to these people as human beings. However, did this quarter of the world's population rally against Hitler? Thus the Moslem criticism of this book falls down... one must now acknowledge the courage of the author of this book to come forward at all, given the fact that most Moslems can not take any criticism of Islam, at all.
Rating:
Summary: Is There a Campaign Against This Book?
Review: By Bill Marsano. Is there a campaign against Irshad Manji's book? Certainly it seems something odd is afoot. Impartial readers should examine the reviews posted (52 as of April 10) and decide for themselves. I have; here are my conclusions: Thirty reviews are positive--3 to five stars--and 14 (nearly 50%) are by people who have reviewed for Amazon before. Only 7 (less than 25%) are anonymous, signed "A Reader"). In general, the reviewers discuss the merits of the <book>. Twenty-two reviews are hostile--almost all only 1 star--and only 5 (about 23%) are by previous Amazon reviewers. (One claims a children's game caused repeated vomiting by her child; reviews a $2.79 screwdriver; and attacks a book she admits not having read. In short, she doesn't review--she rants.) Nine (about 40%) are anonymous. Many are merely ad hominem attacks on the author, who is described as dishonest, ignorant, money-hungry, publicity-seeking (even fatwa-seeking) and fostering a "craze for Islamophobia." One calls Manji "simply not a Muslim" because of her "inability to read Arabic, absence from active Mulim worship, embrace of the West and its secular values, not to mention her identity as a Lesbian feminist." I believe Amazon's reader-reviews are important and should not be distorted by partisan attacks. Readers should be alert to possible unfairness in this case. Now (at last) to the book itself. Manji addresses her fellow Muslims thus: "I have to be honest with you. Islam is on pretty thin ice with me. I'm hanging on by my fingernails . . . ." What sounds like a nifty, snappy, wise-ass opener is, it soon becomes clear, really an expression of pain. Spirituality is important to Manji, and she feels her religion has betrayed her--from childhood onward--and she makes a number of important points. First, she rejects the notion, popular since 9/11, that the problem isn't Islam but that Islam has been 'highjacked' by murderous psychopaths. No, she says: Mainstream Islam IS the culprit; it is cruel and even brutal toward women, toward Jews, toward Christians, toward all other infidels--even toward other Muslims. Dissident Muslims can be and have been beaten, imprisoned, killed. Muslims who aren't religious enough (e.g., those impious, kite-flying Afghanis) have been crushed. (Indeed, they were the Taliban's first victims: There's nothing fundamentalists hate more than apostates.) As for the simplistic idea that "you mustn't confuse Islam with culture," she's all too well aware that Islam and such cultural horrors as Sharia law go hand in hand, each supporting the other. Sharia law, you may recall, means honor killings, punishing homosexuals by toppling walls on them, punishing adulteresses by stoning them to death, and defining rape victims as adulteresses. She is clear on Islam's hermetic nature: Ask a question and get no answer, especially if you're a woman. Propose interpretation and be told the Koran is the literal word of God--and that the 'hadiths' or secondary sources are likewise not to be questioned, analyzed, interpreted. The source of this closed view is, she says, "desert Islam"--the narrow, harsh Wahabist Islam of Saudi Arabia. Its hermeticism is only increasing. The Koran, according to fundamentalists, can't be translated but must be read in Arabic (some also believe that only Arabs are "real Muslims"), and the Wahabist madressas (religious schools) don't want many people to read it even in Arabic. They don't teach reading but foster illiteracy; their students must learn to recite Koranic verses by rote. Very interesting: What you can't read, you can't question or analyze or parse. You can't even know there are contradictory Koranic passages of compassion and tolerance toward non-believers and other beliefs. Can they be literally God's words? "The Koran is so profoundly at war with itself," says Manji, "that Muslims who 'live by the book' have no choice but to choose what to emphasize and what to downplay." Unless, of course, they're madressa-trained illiterates who will never know the contradictions exist. Imagine that: a religion with a vested interest in illiteracy. Is that a recipe for backwardness, or what? Manji says most "moderate Mulims" allow these and other abuses to continue without protest. They remain silent--silent except, Manji says, for "screaming self-pity." Indeed, Muslims are frequently quoted in the New York Times on being maginalized, discriminated against and harmed by "backlash" and Islamophobia. Really? Such reports conspicuously lack anything but accusations and charges; there are never any facts. If Muslims in America in particular and the West in general were being victimized, do you not think you'd have heard about it by now? Manji's view and mine is that Western Muslims either support the abuses of desert Islam--or they are crippled by fear of retirbution. In 217 pages Manji cannot be a scholar nor a historian. She goes a little too easily on the West and Isrtael at times. But she is successful at raising important questions, contradictions and challenges. She is not the best of writers--her tone is urgent, insistent and unmoldulated (to the point of being tedious at times). But her flaws are few and her courage cannot be questioned.--Bill Marsano is a professional writer and editor.
Rating: 
Summary: Moral courage
Review: I would first say that Irshad Manji has shown tremendous courage by writing this book. If the case of Salman Rushdie, or Palestinians who do not fully embrace Palestinian nationalism are indicators, she is taking her life into her own hands by suggesting a need to reform her faith. That courage is to be respected. I am a bit dissapointed that some critics here have been so harsh towards her. Works critical of Judaism and Christianity are standard fare and have led to well needed reforms of those faiths. Her work could serve a similar purpose for Islam if only it weren't dismissed by Muslims. And Islam in its current inception IS in need of reform in many areas such as (...) womens' rights, tolerance of non-Muslim minorities and other places. For the Muslim critics, I would point out that Manji does NOT argue that Islam should be abandoned or even that a "new" form of Islam be embraced. Rather she argues for a RETURN to an earlier form of Islam as practiced in its "golden age" when there were more tolerance to diversity and dissent. Her contention is that the current form of the faith has calcified and that a RETURN to a previous more open form is desirable. That is hardly "anti-Islamic" to my mind at least. She does not deserve the smear campaign and physical danger she has been placed in for suggesting what amounts to a return to an earlier and more open form of her faith.
Rating: 
Summary: Trivial and confused
Review: I read this book - hoping that it would represent some fresh ideas for the liberal mimded muslims amongst us. I could not wait to get home so that I could read it. Alas all it ended up providing was trite, cliche' ridden experience of a person who is craving attention, and hopes to propogate pseudo liberal views on a subject that she has obviously not understood, nor even spent time to study in some detail. The author uses every tool that she has at her disposal including deriding her family, her father, and making veiled references to a trumatic childhood - all in the hope of selling a few more copies. A total dissapointment - not worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: insulting to any reader--undersourced and irresponsible
Review: If you want a more substantive and careful look at these issues you can refer to Yusuf Hamza's work at the Zaytuna Insitute, Khaled Abou El Fadl (Yale Law School Professor in Islamic Law---"Progressive Islam", "A Place for Tolerance in Islam", etc) you can look up Edward Said, Amina Wadud, Kecia Ali, Ingrid Matteson (all well-known Muslim "feminists") also non muslim authors such as John Esposito or Karen Armstrong.--- Or just pick up a Yusuf Ali translation of the meaning of the Qur'an and read the book--- open and honestly and IN CONTEXT. I simply cannot imagine anyone who desires thought provoking reading finding any benefit from this author. I ask myself if she bothered to learn about "her religion" from any other sources than herself. Her presentation of Islam is completely infantile and unresearched. Her claim of a lack of self-criticism in Islam is utterly unfounded, and she would know this if she simply took the time to learn anything about the history of the istihad of which she speaks . As a VERY progressive practicing Muslim, who is neither homophobic nor "backward", I view Ms Manji's discussion of our faith as completely detrimental to true debate. I myself have searched for the answers to her questions and they are not difficult to find. The fact that she portrays herself as a reformer presenting new ideas is completely untrue. Nothing she says is new to the Muslim community, nor to the world. Other true scholars of Islam have indeed brought up these issues, and are continuing to speak about them. The fact that they are not broadcast repeatedly on C-Span Book TV and not taken on expensive publicity tours by controversy-hungry publicists does not mean they don't exist. I am saddened by the exploitation she is victim and partner in. As my sister in Islam I have to pray that she will see how she is being used to further an unsophisticated and blindingly pejorative view of the very faith in which she believes. I find her discussion of race phenomenally ignorant. She asks as if one quarter of the Muslim world do not exist. Consistently refering to Muslims as if they are a concise, easily defined and categorized bunch. As a US-born Chinese-Italian Female convert to Islam who learned about it from African, Pakistani and Arab teachers I find her clumping deeply frustrating. I find myself struggling to understand to what religion and what believers she is refering in her book. Lastly I have to reiterate how terribly hurtful and irresponsible this book is in a context where there is so much ignorance and animosity toward one of the world's largest and most beautiful faiths. While I would protect her right to say all the things she says-- her arrogance really does do detriment to productive discussion and disagreement about Islam. Islam cherishes humility of thought -- through that humility we might indeed find some amount of truth. This work is blindingly arrogant and ignorant, under-researched and simply insulting to the reader. Don't waste your time.
(even if you're hungry for polemics-- it's just a bad book)
Rating:
Summary: The Most Ignorant Book
Review: I think the title says it all.
Rating:
Summary: Misguided and hurtful
Review: Hello and Salaam Alaykum (peace be upon you),
About me: I am an Irish American Muslim who choose Islam after much thoughtful study and a long open minded journey. I am a woman also and I do not wear the veil but respect and support my Muslimah sisters who do. Muslim women should not be forced to wear the veil (hijab) such as in Saudi Arabia or Iran but nor should they be forced to remove the veil (hijab) if it is their choice to wear it such as in Turkey, France, and sometimes here in America. I want the readers to know I love my religion and I am so glad to be a Muslim alhamdulillah! I read Irshad's book and saw her speak recently at Tyson's corner Virginia. What is irritating about her book and what upsets Muslims about it is that she comes across as anti-Islam and appears to be cashing in on the islamaphobic hysteria in America right now. Americans are very ignorant about Islam and we Muslims should be doing more interfaith understanding (Many of us are trying to so please take the time to listen to our perspectives) but Irshad does this in the most negative hateful way and not a positive way thereby cashing in on a rising tide of dangerous ignorance. Non-Muslims please understand that there is a lively debate within the Muslim community about women's rights, minority rights, general reform etc. Irshad claims no thoughtful introspection is taking place within the Muslim community and that is false! Check out www.muslimwakeup.com, www.twf.org, and do a google search "Progressive Islam" do searches on this and other things within Islam and please take some time to study Islam yourself. Get on the Council of American Islamic Relation's list-serve and read about the struggle for civil rights of Muslims in America and read what the Muslim community is going through and how a book like Irshad's only harms this struggle for equality and peace. Read the Qu'ran not Irshad's personal angst ridden book. Irshad confuses over an over again Traditional cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) (practiced by Christian and Angnostic African tribes in addition to some Muslims in North Africa) with Islam. It is not an Islamic practice Islam is against harming women in such a way and if it was Islamic it would be practiced in the largest Muslim country Indonesia and there are no known cases of FGM in Indonesia. Irshad grew up in an abusive family and as a result perhaps she blames much of this on Islam unfairly. Irshad is not a scholar and I asked her about this during her book presentation in Tyson's corner she does not have a PHD or MA and she does not cite within her book where she gets her arguments and information. She also makes the claim that Muslims today are against Christians and Jews. The Quran over and over again states that Islam is simply the completion of the teaching of the Jews and Christians and that all the prophets are good and equal Quran Chapter 3 verse 48 " And Allah will teach him the book of wisdom the Torah and the Gosphel (Bible)". As demonstrated by this verse you can see that the Quran teaches Muslims to respect their fellow monotheists the Jews and the Christians and the wisdom found in the earlier books along with the Quran. Irshad forgets too that within the worldwide global Muslim community of 2 billion Muslims that their is a diversity of races, diversity of ideas, differences in history and diversity of thought. In her book she treats all Muslims as one big group and lumps us all together. She talks about African slaves in Islam but fails to mention that millions of Africans and African Americans are Muslims! Sudan, Nigeria, Senegal Mauritania, Libya, Tunisia, Eqypt, Morocco etc are all countries that have a Muslim Majority! In fact most African Americans today are the descendants of slaves who were once Muslims from Africa and we all know that it was White Anglo Saxon Protestants in the South who held slaves! I could go on and on but read the Quran, Karen Armstrong, John Esposito, Enver Masoud, Edward Said and Muslim scholars don't bother with this book!
Rating:
Summary: where all this anger is coming from
Review: I wanted to read this book, just to see what's up with this women. Come to find out that she has a problem with a religion that she does not understand, nor appreciate. She took the readers ona ride trying to expalin te problems with islam and she kept on and on telling stories that can not be verefied or substantiated. My point is that she is free to write about what ever she wants.I belive that everyone knows about the stories from saudia arabia, but to claim that Israel is a democrecey, while overlooking the fact that Israel impresion 3 million palastenians is kind strange. you wonder who published this book. this is a good book for people who are ignorants about Isalm, the middle east and the world in general. Do not waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: a really great read
Review: I am sure that a lot of people are going to wish that theyd never heard her name or of this book. Its a very good read, very provocative and thought provoking. well worth reading! I wasnt disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading For An Understanding of Modern Islam
Review: Thank Allah for Ms. Manji. Go into any large bookstore and there are dozens of books by Christians and Jews criticising, questioning, condemning, provoking and challenging their respective religions. This is practically a non-existent field for Muslims and Manji not only steps in to contribute but brilliantly explains WHY serious soul-of-Islam searching is so absent in most modern Muslims and WHY many blame America (and, of course, the Jews) for all their ills: the inability to acknowledge intolerable human-rights perpetrated by Muslim against Muslim is just the beginning. She also justly indicts the Left for ignoring Muslim abuse which in turn, keeps the repression going. Just moments ago, reading the message boards regarding the bombing in Spain, one would think that George Bush personally set those bombs or that Muslim fanatics were only expressing their right to disapprove of Spain's policies. This is a thought-provoking book, insightful and, I believe, written out of genuine love and concern for the road Islam is taking. If Islam "has been hijacked" as many like to say, Manji points out that the passengers have not been complaining. This book is written in a casual style (although well documented) and should be read following a more academic work on Islam, it's history, etc. ( I like Bernard Lewis) but the point is, read it and understand what we all must do to ensure a bright future for young Muslims today and a safer future for non-Muslims tomorrow. Challenge! Discuss! Think for yourself!
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