sumiyia said:
its almost unbearable having to listen to irshad manji tout herself as some sort of expert on islam and islamic scholarship.
But it seems that she has realized that most Muslims do not consider her "authentic", as she lamented again and again. And now she is scholar-hunting as well, evidenced by her continual reference to some "Imam". It does seem like brother Irshad is evolving. Who knows, maybe she will convert to Islam eventually.
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it was amusing to hear her refer an audience member (who asked about credible sources on islam for those who'd want to learn more) to her website of all places.. and i also loved the constant advertising of her book in her answers to questions when it really had nothing to do the questions.. and i've read her book btw... its not ground breaking or original.
I think her motivation for this whole facade is fame and not conviction. Wallahu Aalim.
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i have to say that i disagree with irshad on the lines she draws between reformist and moderate muslims, dalia made much more sense.
To be fair, I am surprised that brother Irshad recognized that she is not a 'moderate' or 'mainstream' Muslim, but rather a 'reformist.' That's good. At least she was clear that she is not representative of Muslims in generality.
However, I think that brother Irshad needs to realize that she represents a very small tiny percentage of people who call themselves Muslims, on the order of less than a fraction of a percent. Whereas sister Dalia had data to support the idea that most Muslims support moderation, brother Irshad had to come up with the ridicolous excuse that maybe some Muslims were too fearful to express their true views in the Gallup poll. All of brother Irshad's evidence was anecdotal and nothing more, i.e. "After my lecture, a group of twenty people thanked me" or "I got a bunch of emails".
On an unrelated note, I think sister Dalia is the perfect
dawah carrier. Simply perfect. She realizes that sometimes you need to evade questions in order to achieve the greater good. For example, she dodged questions that might have become attacks on brother Irshad. Mannn, sister Dalia is AWESOME. She wrote the book "who speaks for Islam", and I can honestly say that I would nominate her to speak for Islam any time. May Allah [swt] reward her with the best in this life and the next.
The only thing I would advise her is to sit a bit differently and not to keep playing with the water bottle. She kept drinking water, which doesn't look nice. But otherwise, she rocked.