Young M Junaid Levesque-Alam of Crossing the Crescent got some ’splainin to do. He’s impugned my good lady, everyone’s favorite Muslim Refusenik, Sister Irshad Manji, and I for one ain’t taking this lying down.
First, he hates on her book simply because she sells Muslims and Islam down the river–as if the brother doesn’t realise that that’s what ijtihad (or, rather, its Manji-branded variant Project Ijtihad©) is all about. And so what if torture enthusiast Alan Dershowitz loves her, almost as much as he loves waterboarding and pushing needles under people’s fingernails? Don’t blame that on Irshad–Alan’s a man who knows what he likes, even if the rest of us find that repugnant.
Anyway, Junaid moves on to Sister Irshad’s firm denunciation of radical terrorist Mazen Asbahi’s sabotage of America/resignation from the Obama campaign. Says the brother:
In a Huffington Post piece, she demonstrates no concern about the vilification enabled Asbahi’s dismissal. Indeed, she fails to mention it even once. Is this because Manji is too busy contributing to the problem to pause and reflect? Or is it because this would upset her core base – the neoconservatives who mount these smear campaigns?
Whatever the case, Manji performs her predictable pre-programmed attack routine, observing contemptuously, “…Mazen Asbahi has just resigned. I can’t say I’m disheartened. He’d been embraced by groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Society of North America, renowned for their conservative politics and ‘moderate’ double-speak.”
And what’s wrong with that? MPAC and ISNA are big, scary words, meant to inspire fear and loathing whenever you see them on your screen. I’m surprised and a little disappointed she didn’t insert “Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated” to turn up the heat a little, but she probably had to watch her word count. And, you see, “Moderate Muslim” is defined by Irshad (and Daniel “Crack” Pipes, and Alan Dershowitz, and the rest of the neocon clown college under whose praise Sister Irshad has perfected that celebrity tan) as a Muslim who doesn’t have an interest in the so-called “Palestinian” “people,” or any other of the political, social, economic, and environmental concerns the vast majority of Muslims share. This means, of course, that she’s absolutely right to question their “moderate” credentials–and yours, and mine. When you make up the rules yourself, you get to decide who plays the game.
If Sister Irshad says ISNA and MPAC, and Mazen Asbahi, and CAIR, and the entire mainstream Sunni and Shi’a establishments, are the new focus of our daily Ten Minutes Hate, I ask you brother, who are we to question her?
