Irshad loves Islam: out Muslim author and filmmaker Irshad Manji reclaims the tolerant roots of her religion--and entertains us to boot--in a new documentary on PBS.

Irshad Manji has already achieved more than most of us ever will. But that's nothing compared to all she wants to do. The 37-year-old Canadian Muslim activist burst on the political and literary scene three years ago with her book The Trouble With Islam Today. In daring to criticize the narrow fundamentalist attitudes that for her have usurped her faith, Manji upset so many Muslims that for a time she was forced to travel with bodyguards.

Now Manji has evolved from diagnosing the trouble with Islam to working toward a solution. In her new documentary Faith Without Fear--premiering on PBS's America at a Crossroads on April 19 (check local listings for broadcast times)--Manji seeks to renew the Muslim tradition of intellectual and spiritual questioning known as ijtidad. We caught up with Manji in a hotel room somewhere on the road. As always, she was in a hurry. And that's a good thing.

Whose idea was it to make Faith Without Fear?

Actually, it was my idea--with a twist. [The Corporation for Public Broadcasting] approached me a few months after my book came out in the United States to say, "We find this perspective so compelling that we would love to turn it into a documentary." I said, "I'm flattered, but by the time any documentary is complete, I would have moved on and hopefully would have matured [from the viewpoint expressed in the book]." So I came up with a counterproposal: Instead of doing a documentary about the trouble with Islam today, how about turning the tables and looking at what there is to love about Islam from the perspective of someone who is a real struggling Muslim.

I loved your onscreen interactions with your mother. I can see where you get your strength of character.

She was easily the star of the film, don't you think? She's a pistol.

As gay and lesbian people, many of us have been raised in faiths that say being gay or lesbian is wrong. How do you handle that for yourself?

I don't deny the Koran contains a story that suggests that homosexuality is forbidden. But what I also cannot deny is that the Koran is far more deliciously complex than that. It contains many more passages that advocate diversity of all kinds. Actually the Koran tells us that if God had pleased, he would have made you all one people, but he [gave you] other lives, so he may try you in what he has given you to press forward in your good works.

Passages like this--and this is just one example--suggest that the world's breathtaking multiplicity is divinely designed. And second, [they suggest] there is virtue in tolerating those differences. Notice that I use the incorrect word tolerating, not accepting. I'm actually not seeking acceptance of my sexual orientation from my fellow Muslims. Their approval for what God has made me doesn't matter.

So acceptance isn't the goal?

The only approval I seek is that of my creator and that of my conscience--and my creator lives in my conscience, which means that I have to listen to my conscience every day and be honest with the world about who and what I am. As a Muslim, I believe that societal authority belongs to God. I also acknowledge that on the day of judgment when I will meet my maker, I can't be guaranteed acceptance or approval. But if the Koran is to be believed, that Allah is just and merciful--and in fact every single chapter in the Koran except one begins with the description of God of being the most compassionate and merciful--then at the very least I can expect a fair hearing at the day of judgment. I'm really looking forward to a vibrant and respectful conversation with my creater. Beyond that, it's in his or her hands, and I'm cool with that.