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span class="inline inline-left">JP/Ricky YudhistiraThe recent visit of Canadian activist, writer and liberal Muslim Irshad Manji to Indonesia has been memorable, to say the least.

During a discussion and an event to launch her latest book, Allah, Liberty and Love, at Salihara in South Jakarta last Friday, she said she sensed “a much more conservative vibe” in the capital.

As if on cue, Manji had barely finished her opening talk when a police officer announced that the event had to be postponed partly due to protests from local residents and hardline groups.

Minutes later, shouts of disapproval from those claiming to be local residents were heard. The discussion was cut short formally and Manji had to be escorted out of the venue.

Manji faced more protests from various groups during her next few days in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

Hundreds of members of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) attacked the LKiS publishing office in Yogyakarta where she was speaking about her book on Wednesday night.

Those opposing Manji’s presence in the country, however, mostly had less to say about her books than her sexuality. Members of the MMI and those claiming to be local residents during the Salihara event, for example, said she was promoting lesbianism.

Manji, during an interview with The Jakarta Post a few days after the Salihara incident, said that homosexuality was “barely” mentioned in her book.

According to her, Allah, Liberty and Love is a “how to” book on the subject of moral courage, which she defines as “the willingness to speak your truth to the powers in your community for the sake of a greater good than just your community.”

“This new book really comes from 10 years of conversations that I have been having with young people, young Muslims especially all around the world ... After The Trouble with Islam Today came out in 2003 as you know it received a lot of international press and I began a book tour that I did not realize would become a 10-year global dialogue,” Manji said.

The Trouble with Islam Today, which addresses issues such as alleged animosity towards Jews and inferiority of women in some Muslim-dominated societies, and calls for Muslims to be more critical of their own community, was, according to Manji, driven by anger.

“That anger was real ... and it needed to be expressed at least for me. But in the last 10 years as I have been engaging with people like you all over the world, my own anger has been replaced with aspiration. I now believe that we shouldn’t just expose the corruption. That we can strive for better and that we can, as the Koran tells us, change ourselves in order to change the condition of our society,” Manji said to the audience at the Salihara discussion, which was mostly composed of young people.

Manji constantly displayed a passion for free and critical thinking, which, according to her, is present in the ijtihad tradition in Islam.

However, she said it would probably “take a psychotherapist” to figure out the roots of that passion.

Born in East Africa from parents of Indian and Egyptian descent, she was raised in a family in which Indian culture was dominant. Her family was expelled along with other “brown-skinned people” after Gen. Idi Amin came to power in 1972.

“The ethos at home when I was growing up was keep your head down, keep your nose clean, don’t get in trouble and live for the afterlife,” Manji recalled.

At first, she attended both public school and a madrasa (Islamic school) in Vancouver, Canada, where her family relocated, but stopped attending the latter when she was 14.

“The madrasa teacher tells us that Muslims cannot take Jews and Christians as friends and I asked why not. And he says either you believe or you get out and if you get out get out forever,”  Manji said.

According to her, she got out, told her mother that her leaving the madrasa does not mean leaving Allah, and proceeded to study Islam on her own through the books available at the public library. The works of Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi have helped shape her thoughts.

“I read feverishly and voraciously. I read everything I could get my hands on and interestingly the whole Salman Rushdie affair added layers and layers of commentary about Islam. Is Islam violent? Is Islam peace? That incident offered so many more thoughts about Islam by writers around the world, which was wonderful,” Manji said, referring to the author of the controversial The Satanic Verses.

On the contrary, she experienced a more democratic relationship with an educator of a different religion.  

Manji said when she held the position of student president she used to engage in debates with a vice principal, who was a Christian.

“[The vice principal] would treat me with the respect that a young person would rarely get at, for example, a madrasa. So the fact that he treated me as an actual human being and that he himself was a devout Christian showed me that religion in the public space or people of faith in the public sphere are not always bad news and disagreeing with each others’ ideas doesn’t always mean denying each other’s humanity,” she said.

To this day, Manji said she remains a “faithful Muslim”. She defines faith as a concept different from dogma.

“Faith is secure enough to handle questions. Faith or trust in God never needs to be threatened by questions whereas dogma ... are always threatened by questions. So for me being a faithful Muslim is happily, joyfully believing in the loving nature of one God rather than God’s self-appointed ambassadors,” Manji said.

The label “liberal” itself, she said, is one that is compatible with Islam.

“Liberal in its classical meaning equates with freedom of thinking. So that’s ijtihad. It’s not a political term, not an ideological term. It’s a philosophical term. And it means reason, freedom of thought, pluralism. Ultimately it coheres much more with the Koran’s call for humility than conservatism does,” she said.

To some extent, the label “liberal” does have the potential to draw some reactions, especially those accusing Manji of favoring “Western” ideals and policies seen as benefiting the Western world, such as the Iraq war and the Israel-Palestine barrier.

She said, however, that one could find “surprising” opinions from her about the Iraq “invasion” in Allah, Liberty and Love and that supporting the ijtihad tradition was the opposite of championing a “Western” democratic model.

Labels aside, Manji is steadfast in her efforts. She is currently challenging the moderates within Islam because, to her, some of them are failing to work toward “positive” peace — a concept she learned from civil rights figure Martin Luther King, Jr. “Positive” peace, she said, includes the presence of justice.

“When people are doing violence and intimidating and bullying and harassing others in the name of Allah and moderates don’t like it and don’t say anything because we shouldn’t react, we should just keep the peace, all they are doing is empowering those bullies,” Manji said.

In the end, she said that religion is a liberating force instead of a restraining one for her.

“My faith in God means, among other things, that I can try my hardest with pure intention to change an injustice and work with others to change an injustice but ultimately it’s in God’s hands,” Manji said.