Free Republic

The real battle for religious freedom lurks beneath the Ground Zero mosque controversy. It is sadly ironic that our public debate presents the mosque proponents as the partisans of liberty: That includes everyone from imam Feisal Rauf, the project’s sharia-touting sponsor, to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the Islamist-smitten Left, to the GOP’s own anti-anti-terrorist wing. Yet, wittingly or not, when they champion this mosque and its sponsors, it is the agenda of an alien and authoritarian Islam that they champion — an Islam against which many American Muslims chafe. When it comes to liberty, no one...

Three women facing death threats appeared in public under heavy security last night to denounce a provincial move that would allow Muslims here to settle family disputes in accordance with religious laws, outside the court system. The activists, including Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, say the religious laws known as sharia discriminate against women. "Why, if you have equal rights in Canada, would you take them away from Muslim women?" Hirsi Ali asked. She was joined by Iran's Homa Arjomand and Irshad Manji in a University of Toronto auditorium for an event in support of the International Campaign Against Sharia...

Irshad Manji has already been dubbed ‘Osama’s worst nightmare’ for her criticisms of Islam. Now she wants Britain’s Muslims to stand more firmly on the side of freedomNo wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell”. Ouch. Manji is a glamorous Canadian television presenter whose book, The Trouble with Islam, has made her so famous in America that she...

The recent picture of the president walking hand-in-hand with Saudi Prince Abdullah prompted a torrent of juvenile jokes. Left mostly unasked were important questions, however, about Saudi Arabia’s role in fomenting and supporting militant Islam. A recent controversial book asks these questions—not only about Saudi Arabia, but the Islamic world as a whole. The book is The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith by Irshad Manji. Manji calls herself a “Muslim Refusenik,” a politically loaded term. “Refusenik” was originally used to describe Soviet Jews who refused to go along with the “mind control” and “soulnessness”...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Toronto As a young Canadian Muslim who has called for reform in Islam, I've been traveling throughout North America and Europe over the past year. Last week, I toured France and Spain. God help me. I didn't expect a warm reception from fellow Muslims. But now, I'm also not sure that liberal Muslims like me fit comfortably in a secular European crowd. I say this even after the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker, who police officials say was shot and stabbed by a Muslim extremist. Mr. van Gogh had exercised his right to criticize...

At the age of 14, Irshad Manji was expelled from her Canadian Muslim school for asking too many questions. It was the catalyst for a 20-year journey by the self-styled "Muslim refusenik" to study the problems she felt plagued Islam, culminating in an explosive new book, "The Trouble With Islam: A Wake Up Call for Honesty and Change." In the book, recently published in Canada and available in the United States in January as well as other countries soon, Manji calls for Muslims worldwide to usher in an era of reformation through introspection. Manji explains in her book that being...