Letter to a Muslim Feminist

Rant Number 173 18 May 2005

Dear Irshad Manji,

“Osama Bin Laden’s worst nightmare”. So the world’s rudest interviewer, feisty Jeremy Paxman – the BBC’s resident rottweiler – introduced you on Newsnight. Vastly overstated, dear Irshad. I’d be surprised if the ailing Shaikh, sheltering in his freezing Afghan cave, had even heard of you. More likely, being forgotten is what must worry poor Osama most. Nevertheless, yes, your views are bound to rub up many a pious believer the wrong way. (Sigh…I know you have already received death threats – well, c’est la vie.)

Don’t get me wrong. As soon as I laid eyes on you at your London lecture last week, I instantly liked you. Call me sexist or ‘lookist’, but your young, slender silhouette, the dyed, spiky hair, the black-framed spectacles, the slight Canadian accent – well, Irshad, you do come across as rather sweet – I am not being a creep - on the Good Book I swear it!

You advocate what you call ‘a liberal reformation of Islam’. Champion the cause of universal human rights. Democracy. Women’s rights. Ijtihad, or independent interpretation of the Qur’an. With zest you, quixotically, you charge off and tilts at sundry enemies: scriptural ‘literalism’; Islamic ‘supremacy complex’; Jew-baiting; slavery; male domination – and so on.

To whom shall I compare you? Certainly not to an Al-Ghazzali – or even to an Edward Said. To Italian pasionaria Oriana Fallacy, perhaps? An adroit journalist, a minor gadfly and franc-tireur – let’s push it, a pretty, petticoat mini-Voltaire. But to any intellectual giant – no, not quite, forgive me. I really wonder whether you fully comprehend the perilous paradoxes of your position. What you demand of your fellow Muslims. Something that amounts up to a radical, wholesale deconstruction of their religion. Allah’s dethronement, no less.

Take your ‘liberal reformation’. That already encapsulates a contradiction. In no sense were Christian reformers like Luther and Calvin ‘liberals’. Although no literalists (Martin Luther held that Scripture contains the words (plural) of God, without being absolutely identical with the Word), our reformers saw themselves as restorers of God’s Word, of the Bible, against medieval accretions and distortions. ‘Back to the Book’ could have been their battle-cry. Instead, you set out to deny that your own holy text, the Qur’an, is verbatim the divine speech – a view that runs counter to any traditional, mainstream understanding of Al-Kitab. Your ‘reformation’ would take Muslims away from the Qur’an, not draw them closer to it.

Next, you invoke the idea ijtihad, like a magical ‘open sesame’. (Funny, how it sounds like jihad but it ain’t.) Logical exertion. Independent deduction. A term from Muslim jurisprudence. Brought up these days in order to accommodate your faith to the West. ‘The doors of ijtihad must be reopened’, voices are heard clamouring. (The Shia claim those doors were never shut in their tradition, by the way.) Independent, innovative thinking must be rediscovered. You interpret the idea pretty freely. Don’t mention what the limits or boundaries this ijtihad may be. Can it really be taken as far as to deny the divine inspiration of the Qur’an, as you would like? The ultimate finality of Muslim revelation? Also, being a scholarly, juridical concept, surely it ought to be wielded by scholars? How many Muslim savants do you count amongst your followers?

Of course, Christian theology is pretty sophisticated when it comes to unpacking the meaning of Scripture. And we are familiar with concepts such as ‘development of doctrine”. Cardinal Newman urged it, no less. But we have also suffered from a pox of destructive types of Biblical exegesis. In consequence, today the Anglican Church ‘boasts’ all types of jolly absurdities, like theologians who don’t believe in God, priests who disbelieve in Jesus’ divinity and miracles, church professors who profess atheism and myriad church people who, deprived of the certainties of faith, are morally and spiritually adrift amidst the shipwreck of secular society. Not a situation to be quite proud of, dear Irshad. Is it really your considerate opinion that Islam should aim at following suit?

“Oh, but you are so very negative”, I hear you complain. “What about my positive statements about democracy and human rights, for example?” Yes, human rights. Wonderful things, even better than sliced bread. You appear to posit them as your ultimate standard or benchmark of truth. As an absolute. This is odd. You are willing to set aside a supreme absolute, the Qur’an, what generations of Muslims have trusted to be an infallible, dazzling diamond-like message from Heaven, to replace it with what seems a mushy hotch-potch of relativistic, historically-conditioned European cultural notions. A swap of dubious value, perhaps….

“Fr Frank, how disappointing. You looked such a hip priest, and now you knock human rights!” I love your calling me hip, Irshad. Look, human rights are acceptable, providing we acknowledge: a) they are handed down to us not from man but by the hand of God; and b) they are consistent with the natural law, i.e. the universal moral law that God has written on the human heart, to put it with St Paul. (Romans 2:15) When the world uses human rights language as a stick to beat people of faith about the head, it betrays how far these glorious, God-given laws have been perverted for low, less-than-human purposes.

“So, good priest, no merit at all in my message?” Oh, I wouldn’t say that. When you stand up for justice, for the basic rights of those women who are attacked, raped, tortured, I cheer you on. Your project of macro-business loans, macro-credits to help women economically – very good. Education, education, education, yes, governments must strive to left up the condition of the downtrodden ladies – devote parts of their inflated defence budgets to help the poor. Hear, hear! But, if I were you, I would leave theology alone. It isn’t just that I wouldn’t want any intolerant fanatic to hurt you. It is also that I love Islam not for what I would like it to be (though of course I have great hopes for it will be) – as a Christian I love your religion as it is. So, please, think again, will you?

Revd Frank Julian Gelli