About Asra Nomani
Ms. Nomani takes us on a personal journey from silence to activism. Inspired by tragedy and hope – the murder of her friend and colleague Danny Pearl and the birth of her own son – she has emerged as one of the leading activists in modern day Islam, seeking and winning reform from the mosque to the bedroom. In a civil war of ideas raging within Islam, she hopes to help shape a modern day Islam that provides a space for many voices.
Born in Bombay, India, Asra Nomani came to the United States at the age of four. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she harkened a revolution in October 2003 by walking through the front door of her local mosque in Morgantown, WV, and into the main hall, defying a rule that women enter through the back door and pray in a secluded balcony. In a front page story, the New York Times noted her “Rosa Parks-style activism.”