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The address
was unfamiliar, but she went anyway. The group turned out to be the Bickerers
Club, whose members love to argue. Islam was their topic du jour and their
venue was a tavern. Ms. Khalifa laughed, and made the best of it.
Ms. Khalifa,
who was born in
She is one
of a type now found in most sizable
These women
have achieved a level of success and visibility unmatched elsewhere. They say
they are molded by the freedoms of the
“What we’re
seeing now in
As Najah
Bazzy, a American-born nurse and founder of several charities in
It is not
always easy. Several of the Muslim women interviewed for this article said they
had been the object of abusive letters, e-mails or blog posts.
Yet in their
quest to break stereotypes,
“Muslims
coming to North America are often seeking an egalitarian version of Islam,”
said Ebrahim Moosa, an associate professor of Islamic studies at Duke
University. “That forces women onto the agenda and makes them much
more visible than, say, in
Besides her
speakers’ bureau, which advertises itself as “a bridge between Islam and
Americans of other faiths,” Ms. Khalifa heads a consultancy working with
students, executives, soldiers and even the F.B.I. to overcome stereotypes. Some people
she addresses have never met a Muslim. Some look askance at head scarves.
Ms. Khalifa,
who has degrees in chemistry and human resources, began wearing a head scarf in
her mid-30s, about 15 years ago. At first, she said, people looked at her “like
I was different, Muslim, un-American, stupid.”
But she is
quietly persistent. When a small-town newspaper refused to run Ms. Khalifa’s ad
listing the hours of a nearby mosque, she organized a successful boycott by
local churchmen.
Perhaps the
most noticed figure among American Muslim women is Ingrid Mattson. In a
bright-red jumper and multicolored head scarf, she stood out among the
gray-haired clerics in black who gathered in
Ms. Mattson,
who is 47 and teaches at the Hartford Seminary in
She was
first elected vice president on Sept. 4, 2001, then president in 2006, a
position she held until September; those years were so full of sound and fury
over all things Muslim that gender took a back seat.
“But what
happened on Sept. 11 and after has led American Muslims to be more involved in
civic society,” Ms. Mattson said, “and Muslim women were finding that a very
rich area for activity.”
“The only
area where there’s a limitation is religious leadership — the imam,” she added,
predicting that “we will have some communities in the future that have female imams.”
Historically,
Muslim women have wielded power from behind the scenes, with notable exceptions
like Benazir
Bhutto, the late former prime minister of
Muslim women
in the
The magazine
may profile “
“I didn’t
see Islam as taking my freedoms as a woman,” said Ms. Taylor, who is 57 and
studied the Koran in
The Muslim
population in Atlanta, now estimated at 80,000, has its roots in the 1950s, when
a small group of Nation
of Islam worshipers, mostly black men, met in a grubby building
shared with a chapter of the Ku Klux
Klan. Waves of immigrants from South Asia, the Middle East or, most
recently,
But while
Muslim women have gained prominence, much of their activity remains outside the
mosque.
“There is a
missing link in terms of what the Muslim religion teaches about gender
equality,” Ms. Khalifa said. “The leadership in our mosques is not reflective
of our population — there are hardly any women.”
Imam Plemon
T. el-Amin, a retired leader of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam, talked of “a
slow move — really an indecisiveness — about getting women fully involved in
day-to-day Islamic activities.” That, he said, is changing.
One issue is
gender separation at prayer, imposed to reflect Islamic notions of modesty. In
some mosques, women are relegated to separate rooms. But, Imam el-Amin said,
“I’m seeing mosques do much better at trying to make those separate
accommodations equal.”
Ms.
Mattson’s election to lead the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, was a
signal moment.
Her election
“broke a barrier and made it much more acceptable for women to take a leading
role as leaders of the entire community, not just women,” said Dalia Mogahed,
executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and a former adviser
on faith issues in the Obama White House.
Imam el-Amin
added, “That’s exactly what ISNA and many of the Muslim organizations needed to
see.”