A Muslim's assessment of Islam

Irshad Manji is the author of The Trouble With Islam Today and writes on this subject in the Los Angeles Times: From books to virgins. Manji argues that "dogma is hobbling our faith, because we Muslims have forgotten Islam's own tradition of independent thinking: ijtihad," which left the doors open to "discussion, debate and dissent." At one time the islamic world was a hotbed of philosophical thinking, with Moorish Spain playing a prominent role. Cordoba, one of the largest cities in Europe at the time, had 70 libraries. From the 8th to the 12th centuries "Islamic civilization led the world in ingenuity."

So what happened? The Caliph in Baghdad suppressed ijtihad in an attempt to secure the political unity of his empire. Since then unity has come to be conflated with uniformity. The chief casualty is the vitality of Islam itself. The solution? Ordinary Muslims need to be informed of "their God-given right to think for themselves," and thereby seize the initiative from the extremists. All of this sounds good, of course, but my guess is that Manji's "feminist-lesbian-journalist perspective" (see the Amazon.com description) just might be an obstacle to her gaining a wide following among her fellow Muslims.