MUSLIM WRITER-ACTIVIST ASRA NOMANI TO LECTURE AT SAINT ROSE

ALBANY (March 2, 2010) -- In 2003, Asra Nomani stood alone at her mosque in Morgantown, W.Va., when she challenged rules that required women to enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony apart from the men. To this Muslim single mother and former Wall Street Journal reporter, it was a call for equality in a faith in which most mosques designate separate spaces for women, if they allow women to even enter. The mosque leaders sought to banish her.

Capital Region residents will get to hear Nomani tell of her travails and personal triumphs Thursday, March 25, when she speaks at The College of Saint Rose.

Nomani will deliver her address, “Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam,” Thursday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m. in the Carl E. Touhey Forum, Thelma P. Lally School of Education, 1009 Madison Ave., Albany. A book signing will follow immediately afterward.

Nomani’s lecture, part of the Constance Vickery Series in Ethics in Leadership, is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served. For general information, call 518-485-3789 or e-mail Dr. Michael Brannigan in the Saint Rose Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at michael.brannigan@strose.edu.

Born in India and raised in Morgantown, Nomani developed an early appreciation for journalism. She earned her bachelor’s degree at West Virginia University and, after a stint at Reuters and an internship at the Journal, landed a reporting position in the Journal’s Chicago bureau in 1988. Over a 15-year career with the Journal in Chicago, Washington and New York, Nomani covered the commodities market, airline industry, U.S. Transportation Department and international trade, breaking stories regularly.

After September 11, 2001, while on leave from the Journal, Nomani became a correspondent for Salon magazine, reporting from Pakistan. Daniel Pearl, her friend and colleague who was reporting for the Journal on the war on terror, visited her home in Karachi with his wife Mariane when he was kidnapped by militants on January 23, 2002, and then murdered. Nomani was actively involved in the investigation to find Pearl. Nomani figures prominently in the 2007 film “A Mighty Heart,” which starred Angelina Jolie as Pearl’s wife Mariane searching frantically for her missing husband.

Inspired by tragedy and hope, Nomani returned to her Morgantown home in 2002 and became a writer-activist dedicated to reclaiming women’s rights and principles of tolerance in the Muslim world. When she challenged her mosque’s rules in 2003, she was put on trial at the mosque to be banished. Taking a cue from Martin Luther, two years later she posted on the mosque’s doors “99 Precepts for Opening Hearts, Minds and Doors in the Muslim World.” Today, Nomani’s mosque allows women to enter through the front door and pray in the main hall.

Nomani’s efforts on behalf of Muslim women led to her most recent book, Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam (HarperCollins, 2006).

Today, Nomani is an adjunct professor of journalism at Georgetown University and leading the Pearl Project, a faculty-student investigation into Daniel Pearl’s murder. Nomani also is the co-founder with other Muslim women of Muslims for Peace and has provided commentary on CNN, National Public Radio, BBC, ABC’s “Nightline” and Al-Jazeera, among other media.

The Saint Rose lecture series is named for Constance L. Vickery, who earned her bachelor’s degree from the College in 1951. She is a major stockholder and member of the board of directors of Texas Coastal Bank in Pasadena, Texas, an independently-owned, state-chartered full-service commercial bank near Houston. A native of East Glenville, Vickery resides in Houston, where she is active in her community faith group and is extremely proud of her large, extended family.

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