Okay, so this blog is a little behind the times, as it was the seventeenth of this April 2012 when I went to see Irshad  at Indigo book store, in the Manu Life Centre, Toronto.

Irshad – Dr. Manji, to give her formal title – was there to speak on a modern and controversial theme that is actually timeless: the lack of intellectual honesty that afflicts many areas of Islamic teaching today, even as it does Christianity, and possibly every other religion that has become rigidified into official status. As is usual when authority that wants more authority seizes hold on the inner life, in their hands Islam becomes a club with which to whack the easy targets that most hijacked religions like to whack: those who like to question and think, women in general, gay people, Jews, and of course, those who don’t agree with the flavour of Islam favoured by the particular group in power. 

That’s my brief description of a crusade that has become the dominant purpose of Irshad’s life, which I hope has seized on the spirit of her writing, though cast into my own words. She has of course has laid out her thoughts with greater exactness in her two books, linked below to amazon…

 (my copy’s signed, in red!) and…  which I haven’t read yet, but will.

For those not familiar with the career of Irshad Manji, journalist, Muslim reformer, gay activist, asker of awkward questions, and disliker of such pleasantries as stoning to death for adultery, whipping for rape victims (yes, I said victims) etc., she has a website, www.irshadmanji.com

I too have a website - oh sorry I forgot; you’re on it – and an Amazon presence: Graham Worthington on Amazon