Personal life

Nomani was born in Bombay, India and when she was 4 years old moved to the United States with her older brother to join their parents in New Jersey, where her father was earning a Ph.D. at Rutgers University. When she was 10, her family moved to Morgantown, West Virginia. In her books Tantrika and Standing Alone in Mecca, she states she is descended from Indian Muslim scholar Mawlana Shibli Nomani, known for writing a biography of Muhammad. Nomani received her B.A. in Liberal Studies from West Virginia University in 1986 and M.A. from American University in International Communications in 1990. She has one son, Shibli Daneel Nomani.

Career

Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal correspondent and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, The American Prospect, and Time. She was a correspondent for Salon.com in Pakistan after 9/11, and her work appears in numerous other publications, including People, Sports Illustrated for Women, Cosmopolitan, and Women's Health. She has delivered commentary on National Public Radio.

She was a visiting scholar at the Center for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. She was a Poynter Fellow at Yale University.

Nomani is the founder and creator of the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour. She has also defied literalist interpretations of Islam that segregate women from men in prayers at Mosques,and was a lead organizer of the woman-led Muslim prayer in New York City on March 18, 2005, which has been described as "the first mixed-gender prayer on record led by a Muslim woman in 1,400 years." Various mixed-gender prayers have been led privately by a Muslim woman, including a 1997 funeral prayer led by a South African Muslim feminist Shamima Shaikh. Nomani has said the prayer was the first publicly led Friday prayer in modern day history.

In Standing Alone in Mecca, she describes giving birth to her son as an unwed mother after his father abandoned her in Pakistan, then going to Mecca to perform the Hajj in order to investigate and rediscover her religion. The Washington Post writes that the title echoes Standing Again at Sinai (1990), in which the author, Judith Plaskow, an American Jewish feminist, explored what she saw as the patriarchal origins of Judaism.

Influence

In November 2003, Nomani became the first woman in her mosque in West Virginia to insist on the right to pray in the male-only main hall. Her effort brought front-page attention in a New York Times article entitled Muslim Women Seeking a Place in the Mosque. The article chronicled Nomani's "Rosa Parks-style activism."

Inspired by Michael Muhammad Knight's punk novel The Taqwacores, she organized the first public woman-led prayer of a mixed-gender congregation in the United States, with Amina Wadud leading the prayer. On that day, March 18, 2005, she stated:

"We are standing up for our rights as women in Islam. We will no longer accept the back door or the shadows, at the end of the day, we'll be leaders in the Muslim world. We are ushering Islam into the 21st century, reclaiming the voice that the Prophet gave us 1400 years ago".

In his book Blue-Eyed Devil (p. 209), Knight recalls the event as follows:

"Inside the chapel there might have been as many reporters and camera crews as there were praying Muslims. The imam of the day, Amina Wadud, was so distracted by the long rows of popping flash-bulbs that in the middle of the prayer she forgot her ayats. At PMU's first board meeting, Ahmed Nassef would read to us an email from Dr. Wadud that completely washed her hands of the event. Though she still believed in woman-led prayer, she wanted nothing to do with PMU or Asra Nomani. ... Wadud had drawn a clear line between the Truth and the media whores, and we knew that PMU was on the wrong side. To avoid public criticism, PMU's website made no mention of Asra's role in organizing the prayer. Asra complained of PMU shutting her out."

Her efforts to allow women to lead mixed-gender prayer (Muslim women have always been able to lead single-gender prayers) have been rebuffed by the mainstream Muslim community...no mosques or traditional Muslim women's organizations have participated in her mixed-gender prayers; her first prayer event was held at New York's Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and the second (at Brandeis University) consisted of just six individuals including herself.

In separate developments, several major Muslim organizations in the United States, including the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America, issued their first substantive work aimed at affirming women's rights in mosques, publishing "Women-Friendly Mosques and Community Centers: Working Together to Reclaim Our Heritage." The booklet, written by long-time social activist Shahina Siddiqui and Islamic Society of North America president Ingrid Mattson, was successfully distributed to mosques nationwide.In addition to her books, she has expressed her experiences and ideas for reform in one New York Times editorial and in several other publications and broadcasts. She was a friend and colleague of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was staying with her in Karachi with his wife Mariane Pearl when he was abducted and later murdered by Islamic militants in January 2002.In the making of a movie of the book, A Mighty Heart, by Pearl's wife, the British actress Archie Panjabi plays the role of Nomani.

The Washington Post published a review, by Nomani, of the film "A Mighty Heart".Nomani argued "...that Danny himself had been cut from his own story."

Nomani has been a regular guest on NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin on the Mocha Moms segments.

The Pakistani-American lawyer Asma Gull Hasan, author of Why I Am a Muslim: An American Odyssey, admires Asra Nomani:

Other critics similarly maintain that although they don't object to Nomani's views, they do have a problem with Nomani herself.One such view is held by Louay Safi, executive director of the Islamic Society of North America's Leadership Development Center in Plainfield, Ind. He points out that many women were unhappy with the Morgantown mosque, not just Nomani. Unlike other women, however, Nomani wanted things to change overnight, says Safi. He describes Nomani as a "loner" who "doesn't have the experience of engaging the community, negotiating and trying to change things gradually."

Some critics charged that the prayer events were being staged to promote her book.Traditional Muslims often note her lack of involvement with Islamic practice or the Muslim community prior to 2002.

Nomani broke the news regarding Random House's decision not to publish The Jewel of Medina, a historical novel about Aisha, wife of the Prophet Muhammad. She expressed disappointment in Random House's decision.

Books

• Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. ISBN 0-06-057144-6
• Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love. ISBN 0-06-251714-7

Articles

• Marie Claire: Project Pearl: The Bravest Class in Town
• Washington Post: A Gender Jihad For Islam's Future
• Washington Post:The Woman Who Went To the Front of the Mosque
• Sojourner magazine: The Islamic Reformation has begun
• Slate magazine: How retailers are marketing to fashion-conscious Muslim women
• Daily News: My answered prayers
• American Prospect Magazine: Pulpit Bullies
• Sojourner magazine: Struggle for the soul of Islam
• New York Times: Hate at the local mosque
• Washington Post: Rebel in the mosque
• Brandeis University Article on Asra Nomani Includes Photos

Anthologies

• Living Islam Out Loud
• Because I Said So, ISBN 0060598786

Videos and audio

• News story on Asra Nomani
• Book TV interview with Asra Nomani
• NPR audio commentary of Asra Nomani

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