Canadian writer and critic of fundamentalist Islam Irshad Manji asks “What is a ‘moderate’ Muslim?”  Pope Benedict’s Regensburg speech raised the question, albeit unintentionally.  His discussion of the relationship between reason and faith included the now-infamous quotation from 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaelogus, stating that Islam is spread by violence, which is contrary to reason and therefore contrary to God’s nature.  Death threats from Muslims ensued.

Ms Manji defended the pope in a commentary on CBS News.

[A]s a faithful Muslim, I don’t believe the Pope needed to apologize.  We Muslims resent it when non-Muslims reduce the Quran to its most bloodthirsty passages. Why, I wondered, are we reducing the Pope’s speech to a mere few words?

Having now received some ominous e-mails from Muslim Americans, she quotes from two:

“You said that how Muslims are reacting to the Pope is like reducing the Quran to its most bloodthirsty passages. There is no such thing, Missy… You are looking for cheap publicity for your book and bashing Islam is the easiest way to get it nowadays. It used to be sleeping with the publisher, but for that you require looks. One more thing, if you are a Jew, you should not be ashamed of it."
. . .
“Do you blame the people who give you death threats? Or try to psychically harm you? I happen to agree with them. If you know how to talk to people, it will get you somewhere. If you don't, you will have many enemies…”

For such Muslims, concludes Ms Manji, the Quran is the perfect, unedited, unambiguous word of God, and therefore any criticism, however limited or nuanced, is forbidden.

Thus the central conundrum for us Muslims. If it’s an article of our faith that the Quran is the unfiltered declaration of God, then what makes moderate Muslims “moderate”?

For the great majority of Muslims, apparently, the Quran is above and beyond any possibility of critical thought.  Islam regards its holy book in a much more "fundamentalist" way than even the most literalist brand of Christianity regards the Bible.

Previous related posts: