Events
Former Wall Street Journal Reporter Asra Nomani Leads Mixed-Gender Prayer Services
Top: Asra Nomani leads a mixed-gender prayer service near the Brandeis chapels.
On March 23, 2005, the Institute brought former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani to Brandeis University to give lectures and lead prayer services. She spoke about her career in journalism, about the beheading of her close friend and fellow reporter Daniel Pearl, and about her quest for Muslim women's rights. Nomani, one of Pearl's best friends, was living in Pakistan when Pearl was kidnapped by extremists. Nomani was devastated that men acting in the name of her religion had brutally killed her friend, whose last words were, "I am a Jew"--and was spurred on to her personal odyssey to discover the "truth" about Islam.
Author of Standing in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam, Nomani led two traditionally forbidden mixed-gender prayer services at Brandeis--one at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center, and the other outside the campus’s three chapels. At Brandeis, she was embarking on the "Muslim Women's Freedom Tour," advocating for an Islamic Bill of Rights for women in mosques and another for women in the bedroom.
Click here to view the poster invitation to the event.
Top: Nomani discusses the significance of challenging the tradition in which Muslim services are led only by men only. She is speaking with University of Massachusetts/Lowell students who had come to participate in the groundbreaking prayer services.
Middle Left: Bernadette Brooten, professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies and director of the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project, and Shula Reinharz, professor of sociology and director of the Women’s Studies Research Center (WSRC), praise Nomani’s courage at a reception at the WSRC.
Middle Right: Correspondent Muna K. Shikai of Al-Arabiya TV interviews event attendees for a program that was aired widely in Muslim countries
Bottom: After a WSRC reception in her honor, Nomani and two UMass/Lowell students discuss women's rights and Islam with several dozen students, professors, journalists, and other visitors.
Top Left: Former Wall Street Journal reporter and author leads a traditionally forbidden mixed-gender prayer service, only the second such service in the country, at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. Nomani was the first woman to walk in the front door of her mosque and pray alongside men, saying that the act was “about moderate, inclusive, and tolerant Islam expressing itself in the world.”
Top Right: Nomani discusses her book Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam with guests at an Institute reception held after her main campus address. Her controversial book includes “An Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in Mosques” and “An Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Bedroom.”
Middle: Nomani’s day at Brandeis was chronicled for a planned PBS documentary. She argues that Islam’s expression in the 21st century contradicts its own essential teachings, saying, “Islam isn’t as the extremists define it.”
Bottom: Nomani’s visit at Brandeis attracted national and international media, including television correspondents whose programs air in predominantly Muslim countries.
