Irshad Manji founded the Moral Courage Project, an affiliate of the Research Center for Leadership in Action, to teach us that real diversity is about different ideas, not just identities.
As part of the Moral Courage Project, Irshad has launched a series of public conversations about moral courage in journalism, politics, religion and beyond, engaging with leaders who will illuminate and influence the future of free expression in a fragile world.
February 18, 2009
92nd St. Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
RCLA Scholar Irshad Manji, to whom Oprah Winfrey bestowed the first "Chutzpah Award," talked with award-winning CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour about moral courage in journalism.
Watch the event on YouTube.
Photo: Joyce Culver
January 18, 2009
92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
Irshad Manji, the Muslim reformer whom The New York Times calls "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare" talked with the celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie on the 20th anniversary of Iran's fatwa against him. Salman Rushdie is the author of 10 novels, one collection of short stories and four works of nonfiction, and a winner of the Booker Prize, the Booker of Bookers and the Best of the Booker. Rushdie's most recent novel is The Enchantress of Florence.
Watch the event on YouTube.
Photo: Joyce Culver
October 29, 2008
Cooper Union
A dialogue between happy heretics, this event featured Edgar M. Bronfman, former head of the World Jewish Congress and, most recently, co-author of Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance.
In this brave book, Bronfman calls on North American Jews to transcend victimhood, welcome the inter-married, and embrace the creativity of outsiders. It's a perfect counterpart to Irshad Manji's international best-seller, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, which encourages the Muslim community worldwide to speak out against religious terror and advance human rights.
Read a transcript of the event.
Photos: Phil Gallo
March 11, 2008
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Launched on the fourth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, the Moral Courage Project featured one of the Muslim world's most maverick thinkers, Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im.
He's a professor of human rights, a reform-minded Muslim, an exile from Sudan and author of a book that argues Muslims need separation of mosque and state in order to become better Muslims. Now that's chutzpah!
An-Na'im launched his acclaimed book, Islam and the Secular State, under the banner of the Moral Courage Project, which is founded and directed by RCLA scholar Irshad Manji.
For highlights of this event, please click here.
Photos: Kate Otto
Learn more about Irshad and her latest projects by reading her blog.
