Irshad Manji is the Canadian author of the international best-seller, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith. She is also the driving force behind Project Ijtihad, an initiative to restore Islam's tradition of critical thinking. The Jakarta Post in Indonesia recently identified her as one of three Muslim women making a positive change in Islam. This past March, she spoke at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Consultation on Conscience in Washington. The following interview is adapted from her address at the Consultation and from a conversation with Reform Judaism editor Aron Hirt-Manheimer.

Why do you believe that Muslims will embrace liberal ideas?

For all of the anger, hatred, even death threats I receive, I'm hearing more of the opposite--support, affection, even love from Muslims around the globe. At the World Economic Forum this past January, a number of Arab journalists and political leaders quietly approached me to ask, "Do you know how many of our youth are buzzing about your book?" They didn't always say this with a smile. And my inbox filled up with messages from Muslims in the Middle East who pleaded with me to get the book translated into Arabic so they could share these ideas with their friends. My standard response was "Name one gutsy Arab publisher willing to take this on," but a lot of them weren't going to be held back by the publishing establishment. "Why don't you get the book translated into Arabic yourself and then post the translation on your website?" they responded. "If you let us download the Arabic edition free-of-charge, we can read these ideas in relative privacy and safety--which means we can share them with our friends. "I loved their logic! So I took their advice, and only two days after the Arabic edition went live on my site, a teenager in Jordan wrote to say that he had started an underground discussion group based on the book. More than that, he wants to work with me for the day when this underground book club will become visible.

It's because I've heard countless responses like this that I'm now working to establish a leadership center for reform-minded Muslims around the world. I'm targeting those who are already liberal in attitude, but who don't yet have the courage to dissent openly with orthodoxy.

In your book and on your website, www.muslim-refusenik.com, you refer to yourself as a "Muslim Refusenik." Is this a reference to the refuseniks from the former Soviet Union?

Yes. I adapted this phrase from the original refuseniks--Soviet Jews who championed religious and personal freedom. Their Communist masters refused to let them emigrate to Israel, but they nonetheless persisted in trying to leave the Soviet Union--for which many paid a harsh price, some with hard labor and some with their lives. Over time, though, their continued refusal to comply with the mechanisms of mind control and soullessness helped end a totalitarian system, or at least the worst elements of it. Likewise, I tip my hat to the newer refuseniks--Israeli soldiers who protest the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In the same spirit of conscientious dissent, I'm urging my fellow Muslims to protest the ideological occupation of Muslim minds by our own leaders.

Are women and men equal proponents of the movement toward progressive Islam?

From what I'm observing, more women than men are at the vanguard of this effort. Today, for example, there's a movement afoot to introduce Sharia (Islamic law) for Muslim families in Ontario, Canada's largest province. Muslim women are the ones taking to the streets and speaking out against Sharia's infringement on their rights.

Women seem to be taking the lead internationally, too. Last year I conducted a tour beginning in the UK, with Germany as the mid-point and Australia as the final destination. In each of those places and at stops in between, young Muslim women--some dressed in the headscarf and others not--were the most passionate about bringing their communities back to the spirit of critical thinking. They're fed up with being separated from men and treated like second-class creatures of God. They know that Islam is capable of better.

How dangerous is it for Muslim women to voice these beliefs out loud?

Sometimes it's a matter of getting over your own self-imposed fear. But other times the intimidation is real. Many Muslims who write to me in support, or who whisper "thank you" in my ear after a public event, tell me that they can't go public with their gratitude. They can't even be vocal about their personal struggles with their faith, fearing a violent reaction from family members or fellow Muslims. Keep in mind that this is happening not just in the relatively closed societies of the Middle East but also in the open societies of the West.

The source of this intimidation is not just Muslim men. That would be too easy an answer. The actual source is an Arab cultural tradition known as honor which requires women to relinquish their individuality in order to maintain the reputation of the men in their lives. This, in effect, turns women into communal property. Their lives no longer belong to them but to a wider group of people--their families, their tribes, sometimes even their nations. So when a Muslim woman is accused of dishonoring--of shaming, of breaking moral codes--the punishment against her can be much greater than the so-called crime merits because she is considered to have shamed not just herself, but a wider group, and the penalty has to be large enough to compensate that group.

Some people may disagree with my analysis, saying that Islam as a faith should not be confused with honor as a cultural tradition. They're right--in theory. But in reality this is the way in which Islam has been promulgated for most of its history, with honor being bound up in religious practice. If we're going to have a chance at reform, we Muslims will have to separate the two.

Despite the intimidation, you continue to advocate change.

Absolutely. It's not just my right; it's my responsibility. In chapter 4, verse 135, the Quran declares: "Believers! Conduct yourselves with justice and bear true witness before God, even if it be against yourselves, your parents, or your family." As a person of conscience, it's my duty to expose human rights abuses occurring in the name of Islam. And I know that many more Muslims have a troubled conscience. The challenge for people like me is to turn the underground hunger for change into an above-ground phenomenon.

Are you putting Muslims at risk?

I'm not asking anybody to do what I myself won't. For example, most reform-minded Muslims don't have a bodyguard, so I don't have one either. If I'm going to convey to young Muslims that it's possible to dissent with orthodoxy and live, then I can't have a big burly fellow looking out for me wherever I go. It would send the wrong message.

By the same token, I can't deny that Islamic reform is a risky business. The key is to temper that risk. This can be done in at least two ways. One is through technology. For example, we've talked about how access to an online copy of my book is giving Arabs in the Muslim world the safety they need to spread these ideas. I've since posted the Urdu edition, which can be read by Pakistanis; and am now getting the book translated into Farsi, the language spoken by most Iranians.

And the fact that I'm receiving letters of gratitude from readers throughout the Middle East brings me to the second way of mitigating risk--sheer numbers. Project Ijithad will eventually establish a leadership center to provide reform-minded Muslims with three things: 1. the permission to question and debate; 2. knowledge about the Golden Age of Islam, when Jews, Muslims, and Christians worked in relative harmony to preserve and expand intellectual achievement; and 3. a physical space where they can network with one another face-to-face, so that even in their most despairing moments, they can see they're not alone. Inshallah, with God's help, we will create a critical mass of emerging Muslim thinkers who have the confidence to dissent with authoritarianism in Islam.

You mention the Golden Age of Islam, which spanned from the 9th to the 12th centuries. Why was it so dynamic and what happened to it?

Key to the Golden Age was Islam's tradition of critical thinking, known as ijtihad (pronounced ij-tee-had). I realize that this word sounds frighteningly like "jihad" to many non-Arab ears. In fact it comes from the same root--to struggle. But unlike any notion of violent struggle, ijtihad is all about struggling to reason. In the early centuries of Islam, thanks to the spirit of ijtihad, 135 schools of thought thrived. In Muslim Spain, scholars would teach their students to abandon "expert" opinion about the Quran if their own conversations with the ambiguous Quran elicited better evidence for peaceful ideas. And in Cordoba, one of Spain's most vibrant cities, there were 70 libraries. That rivals the number of libraries in most cosmopolitan cities today. Islam had it 1000 years ago.

Besides intellectual pluralism, there was religious tolerance. Jews and Muslims lived side-by-side, contributing to each other's development. Jews served as diplomats, doctors, bankers, teachers, and military generals in the courts of Muslim rulers. In turn, Muslim leaders cleared trade and communications routes, allowing for the open sharing of Jewish theology. The intermingling of influences produced fantastic results for both Arabs and Jews. Maimonides, for example, wrote most of his work in Arabic. And much of what we in North America assume to be strictly "Western" culture was shaped by Muslims during the Golden Age. For example, one of the first universities in recorded history, the House of Wisdom, sprang up in 9th-century Baghdad. Muslims also gave the world mocha coffee, the guitar, and even that ultra-Spanish expression, "Ole!" (which has its root in the word "Allah"). Thanks to the spirit of ijtihad, Islamic civilization led the world in curiosity, creativity, and innovation.

What eclipsed this enlightened period of Islam?

Toward the end of the 11th century, the gates of ijtihad closed for political reasons. The fragile Muslim empire--from Iraq in the East to Spain in the West--was experiencing a series of internal convulsions. Dissident denominations were popping up and declaring their own runaway governments. So the main Muslim leader, known as the caliph, cracked down politically. Within a few generations, Islam saw the closing of something else--the gates of ijtihad. The 135 schools of thought were whittled down to only four, in which conservative Sunni teachings reigned. This in turn produced a rigid reading of the Quran as well as a series of legal opinions known as fatwas that scholars could no longer overturn or even question, but only imitate. With some glorious exceptions, that's what Muslim scholars have been doing to this day--imitating each other's medieval prejudices, without much introspection. In fact, after the gates of ijtihad were closed, innovation was deemed a crime. Tolerance took a severe beating as result. One of the enduring lessons of history is that whenever an empire becomes insular to "protect" itself, intellectual decline and cultural intolerance are sure to follow.

How can ijtihad be restored today?

I don't believe there's a single answer. There are multiple audiences, so there have to be multiple approaches. Take, for example, Muslims in the West. We may be best positioned to revive ijtihad because we already enjoy precious freedoms to think, express, challenge, and be challenged without fear of government reprisal. Muslims are immigrating to the West in bigger numbers than ever--which offers my generation a sterling opportunity to help the emerging generations reconcile their Muslim identity with their pluralistic reality. One approach, then, is to teach young Western Muslims about Islam's towering intellectual figures, so they understand there's nothing incongruent about being thoughtful and faithful simultaneously. Very few public schools or Islamic religious schools are teaching these themes. Project Ijtihad seeks to fill that gap.

In the Islamic world, I believe the key is to improve literacy so that Muslims can read the Quran for themselves and see the various options it offers them for self-respect--as well as respect of the "other." For instance, the Quran tells women it is their right to reject marriage. And if they choose to accept marriage, the Quran encourages them to negotiate a contract so that their interests are no less protected than their husband's. You could say Islam introduced the prenuptial before Elizabeth Taylor popularized it! Also, when women read the Quran, they will encounter verses that heap praise on Abraham, grandfather of the three monotheisms, as well as passages that describe Jews as members of the "exalted nation." A couple of separate verses even validate the sovereign role of Jews in the Holy Land. Self-serving clerics won't share any of this information. You have to be literate to get it.

What ideas about reformation are now emerging?

In North America, young progressive Muslims are creating "reformist" translations of the Quran. They're organizing marches against terror. They're holding public prayer sessions led by women and insisting on the right of women to worship equally with men. It's Osama Bin Laden's worst nightmare.

Can we North American Jews help you spread your message of a progressive Islam?

I believe so. Sometimes the incentive for Muslims to engage in honest conversations inside our communities comes from the outside. That's counterintuitive but true. We Muslims in the West don't live in splendid isolation from you. We go to your workplaces and your classrooms and your chat rooms, and you come into ours. The conversations you have in these venues will affect us too, and in order not to be "out of the loop," we have to get involved. This is the messy way in which progress happens.

So more than anything I would encourage your readers to continue taking an interest in contemporary Islamic ideas and, more importantly, speaking openly about them. You'll be creating conversations where none would have existed before.

I understand that after you finished speaking at the Consultation on Conscience, you stayed for the remainder of the conference, engaging in conversations with progressive Jewish groups. What did you seek to learn, and what has remained with you?

I wanted to learn whether it's true that if you put three Jews in a room, you'll get five opinions. I discovered that's a myth. You'll actually get seven opinions. Better still, you'll see how diversity of thought does not have to undermine community.

That's not to say this was a gathering devoid of tribalism. One young delegate told me in pained tones that even at a conference as liberal as this, he didn't feel safe openly questioning Israel's existence. He wanted to discuss a single, bi-national state--not one based on "giving privileged access to those of a particular religion or race," as he put it. Whatever my differences with his analysis, I found his desire for more Jewish ijtihad to be a compelling expression of conscience.

At the end of the day, this much is clear: He can dissent without fearing for his life. I'm working for the day when Muslims, even in North America, can claim the same.