n a recent Tuesday, Asra Nomani stood outside the Morgantown mosque. She and a friend chatted excitedly about how two female WVU students had started worshipping there.
Above them, a white minaret, a tower traditionally used to call Muslims to prayer and once thought to have served as a beacon of light, overlooks the mosque and Nomani.
In her own way, the WVU graduate and former Wall Street Journal reporter has become a beacon, speaking out for women’s rights in the Muslim community and denouncing people who commit terrorist acts in the name of religion.
In the post-9/11 world, the mosque has become the battleground for Nomani’s fight for peace and tolerance in the Muslim world. Seen as both a crusader and a troublemaker, the 40-year-old Nomani touched off a firestorm when she entered a crowded mosque last May in Los Angeles, defied Islamic tradition, and sat with the men waiting to pray.
It’s not the first time Nomani has angered Muslim leaders. Two years ago, she became embroiled in a dispute at the Morgantown mosque for challenging rules that required women to enter a back door and pray in a secluded balcony.
The mosque later reversed its policy that banned women from the front door and main hall.
In March, Nomani started the Muslim Women’s Freedom Tour on the heels of releasing her latest book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. One of her stops was in New York City, where she organized a woman-led Muslim prayer with a mixed-gender congregation. She stood in the front row.
“Until then, this right had been denied women in Islam, even though the historical record shows that a woman led men and women in prayer in the 7th century at the time of the prophet,” she said. “It was a profound watershed moment in the history of Islam, and I believe we changed the course of history for not only Islam in the modern day, but also the world.”
The autobiographical Standing Alone in Mecca chronicles the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lifetime, as seen through the eyes of a young single mother wrestling with her faith.
“I was shell-shocked from the murder of my friend (fellow Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) in the name of Islam,” she said, “and it was becoming increasingly clear to me that my boyfriend, a Muslim man in Karachi (in Pakistan, unwed mothers can be condemned to brutal punishment), intended to abandon me and our child—too afraid to break the rules of our society and accept his role as a father.”
Pearl and his wife Mariane were staying at Nomani’s house in Karachi, where she was covering the war in Afghanistan for Salon magazine, when Pearl left for an interview and never came back.
In Nomani’s darkest hour, she gained strength from Pearl’s friendship and returned home to Morgantown to give birth to her son.
“I am standing up within my Muslim world because of Danny,” she said. “He was a remarkable, beautiful human being who loved his family and wanted to make the world a better place. Instead, he was slaughtered. I couldn’t call myself a Muslim, raise my son within Islam, and live with my conscience without standing up against bigotry, intolerance, and sexism.
“I know the indomitable spirit of women in Islam—and women everywhere—will survive our lifetimes and triumph over more trials and tribulations,” she wrote in Standing Alone in Mecca.
Nomani has taken her cause to the airwaves—appearing on CNN, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and ABC’s Nightline—and apparently, her message is being heard. More women are attending the Morgantown mosque than ever before.
“Morgantown has become a shining light to the rest of the Muslim world because of the work we are doing to open the doors of mosques to women,” she said. “As a result of our activism in Morgantown, we have put an international spotlight on improving women’s rights and tolerance in our Muslim communities. Morgantown was on the front page of The New York Times as an example of one of the cities leading the charge for women’s rights in mosques.”
Nomani remains undeterred despite a recent death threat traced to a cell phone belonging to a resident in Chico, California. According to the FBI, an investigation so far has revealed nothing useful.
“I am trying to be vigilant,” she said. “We would never have had social progress in America or this world if death threats and physical intimidation had silenced George Washington, suffragette Alice Paul, activist Sojourner Truth, or so many others in this country’s long history. I have breathed the air that tells us, ‘Mountaineers are always free,’ and I believe that means being free from fear.”
In addition to the critically acclaimed Standing Alone in Mecca, Nomani is the author of Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love.
Her fight for equality and social justice is now part of a one-hour PBS documentary that’s being funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s America at a Crossroads initiative, a program that supports films about the post-9/11 world.
The film, The Mosque in Morgantown, looks at how the debate over reform in Islam has played out in a small West Virginia town. One portion of the documentary features Nomani participating in a recent community forum at WVU. No air date has been set.
Born in Bombay, India, Asra Nomani grew up in West Virginia and attended Morgantown High School.
Nomani’s niche for writing earned her a coveted spot as a student correspondent for The Dominion Post, where she was befriended by mentor Evelyn Ryan, a WVU graduate and then-budding journalist.
“She proved to me in the living flesh that a woman could make it as a journalist,” she said.
In 1982, the self-described “overambitious immigrant kid” began her studies at WVU, trying to follow in the scientific footsteps of her father, Zafar, now a professor emeritus of nutrition at the University. It wasn’t long, however, before she found her real passion was journalism.
“My father chanted like a mantra the goals of a land-grant institution: education, research, and service,” she recollected. “But it was very clear from early on that if the student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, could hand out diplomas, I’d get mine there.”
From her first story about Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and prayer, Nomani was determined to bring the global local.
“I will never forget the card I got after my first story was published,” she said. “One of the editors wrote to me to tell me that she saw talent and creativity in my work. Because of the power of encouragement that she revealed to me, I always took student interns and cub reporters under my wing at The Wall Street Journal.”
During those early days at the DA, some of her fondest memories were calling Italy to confirm that a controversial Italian leader had been denied entry to come to the United States to speak at WVU, cornering men with earrings to document the new fashion trend, and sitting down with visiting newsmakers such as conservative G. Gordon Liddy and investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
A lot has changed since Nomani was a WVU student. Back then, she was asking Ron Justice, then student body president, for quotes.
“Now, he is the Morgantown mayor and an assistant dean, shaking hands with the president of the United States,” she said.
“Growing up in our university town and studying at WVU instilled in me the character traits that have allowed me to succeed in the rest of the world. By osmosis, I absorbed the ideals that West Virginia University values: intellect, kindness, professionalism, tolerance, excellence, service, and diligence. People work so hard on a university campus. It was here that I learned to work hard for good.
“We are still a place where we can positively impact students to go out into the world to make it a better place. I should know. I was lucky enough to be one of those students. We are a world-class home for greatness. I can still feel the pulse of compassionate activism and critical thinking that influenced me so much as a student.”
Nomani is an internationally known author, activist, and journalist. She covered the airline industry, air safety, international trade and travel, among other beats, during her 15-year tenure at The Wall Street Journal.
Her articles have also appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times and Time magazine.
Nomani resides in Morgantown with her son, Shibli, whose Arabic middle name Daneel is a tribute to slain journalist and friend Daniel Pearl.
Her future plans include possibly writing children’s books about Islam and helping to forge a new school of jurisprudence that would redefine the laws that govern the Muslim world.