The Secular Islam Summit

In early March 2007 there was a Secular Islam Summit held in Florida. On the summit's agenda were issues such as “the importance of expanding Koranic criticism, the state of freedom of expression in Muslim societies, educational reform and the urgent need for a paradigm shift in Islamic philosophy.” The goal was to speak out against the orthodoxy that has come to dominate much of Islam. The speakers included the well known Ibn Warraq, who wrote a book entitled Why I am not a Muslim, and Irshad Manji who is a lesbian and author of the book The Trouble With Islam.

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was a little upset over this Summit, to say the least. They have posted several comments on their website concerning this issue, two of which you can see here and here.

I don't think I can sum up this issue any nicer than this Washington Post article already has.