The first thing I do is thank God for letting me wind up in a place where I can dream big dreams and tap my potential. Ironically, speaking of my freedoms, I then check my inbox for death threats. If any appear, I forward them immediately to the detectives I work with at the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department.

I usually don't have breakfast. I tend to get right into my work. But I do have a cup of hazelnut coffee. Inexplicably, my trips to London have transformed me from a tea person into a coffee person.

I live with Michelle, my partner of over seven years. She has a highfalutin job with the Department of Justice — a good place to have allies. We didn't bargain for it, but that's how it happened. Mind you, she didn't bargain to be living with a religious reformer. Her job mostly keeps her in Toronto. Sometimes she comes on the road with me, and boy, is that a treat.

Apart from catching up with Michelle and my mother, when I'm at home in Toronto I work on my TV show: we feature maverick thinkers in fields ranging from science to spirituality. I've just come back from the Yemen, where we made a film about Islam. I've also just been made a fellow at Yale University.

I grew up in a multicultural, multiethnic suburb in Vancouver and attended two schools: a regular public school and, on Saturdays, the Islamic religious school, the madrasah. That's where I learnt the difference between education and indoctrination. My first question was: "Why can't girls lead prayer?" My teacher's response was: "Read the Koran." But there's nothing in the Koran that suggests women cannot take such a position. The question that finally got me booted out was: "Where is the evidence for this Jewish conspiracy against Islam?"

 I had a crucial choice to make. I could have left Islam, as many Muslims quietly do. Or I could give Islam another chance, and ask Islam to give me another chance. I decided to study Islam on my own. Am I ever glad I did!

Years later, when I was working in Toronto as a TV producer for Queer Television, I read a newspaper clipping about a 17-year-old Muslim girl in Nigeria who was condemned under her state's sharia law to 100 lashes for having premarital sex, even though she had seven witnesses to show she'd been raped. My boss wrote on it: "Irshad, one day you'll tell me how you reconcile this kind of insanity with your Muslim faith."

I couldn't believe he had the gall to question my religion. Later, I realised my identity as a Muslim told me to get defensive, but my integrity as a human told me he was right to ask this question. That was my conscience's wake-up call.

I would like my faith community to come to terms with the diversity of ideas, people and beliefs in our universe.

I speak out against the ill-treatment of many Muslim women today; the Jew-bashing many Muslims engage in; and the scourge of slavery in regions ruled by Islamist, as opposed to Islamic, regimes, which use Islam as a political cudgel and a bastardised ideology. I also propose the revival of a tradition to correct what's gone wrong with Islam. Independent thinking and creative reasoning, known as ijtihad, was something Islam always prided itself on. My foundation, Project Ijtihad, aims to revive this way of thinking and I'm helping young Muslims to set up centres in various countries, including India and the United Arab Emirates.

I generally don't have lunch. I wind up being so consumed by my work that it's already 4 or 5pm and I haven't eaten a thing. When I'm working in Toronto, if I can, I'll hop in the car and pick Michelle up from work: it gives us alone time. When we use the car, we've been trained by the police to look inside the exhaust, under the car, in the trunk, before turning the ignition key. I don't live in fear, but that doesn't mean I can be irresponsible. After the book was published, I had a bodyguard nearly 24/7. I also took the police's recommendation to install bulletproof windows at home, a state-of-the-art security system and a mailbox that has a lock so that people can't shove in a letter bomb or a dead rat.

Whenever we can, we go for a jog on Toronto's beach. It's gorgeous. Young and old, people of various skin tones and lifestyles, descend upon the beach to play volleyball, run, walk their dogs. It's a way of reconnecting with my city.

If Michelle's home, we whip something up in the kitchen. I'm a big meat-eater. I joke that I'm a "carni-whore" — I love a slab of steak and fries. Usually from 6 to 7pm we'll watch the news, first the BBC World News and then one of the American news channels. We're such geeks — we love comparing how the different channels select the stories, what spins are put on them, and who's worthy of being believed.

I'm a night owl. After 10pm my adrenaline gets pumping. If I have a column to write or something significant to pour my thoughts into, that's when I'll do it. I'd love to be able to operate on four hours' sleep, but I can't. By the time I get to bed, around 1 or 2am, my mind is pretty exhausted. I fall asleep quite quickly."