Asra Q. Nomani, former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and author of “Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam,” will be the special guest speaker at the Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship Benefit on Saturday, March 15, 7:30 p.m., at the Albuquerque Journal Theatre, National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Photo: Asra Q. Nomani
The University of New Mexico Women’s Resource Center began offering the Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship in spring 2007 to graduate and undergraduate single mothers studying at UNM. An application form for the Sabrina Single Mother’s Scholarship is available at Sabrina Single Mother's Scholarship. The deadline to apply is Friday, Feb. 1.
After Sept. 11, 2001, while on leave from the Wall Street Journal, Nomani became a correspondent for Salon magazine, reporting in Pakistan. She earned an Online Journalists Award for feature reporting for her dispatches.
Nomani was inspired by tragedy and hope following the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Karchi, Pakistan. Pearl was staying at Nomani’s home when he was kidnapped.
Nomani was actively involved in the investigation to find Pearl. She is a visiting scholar in the practice of journalism at Georgetown University, leading the Pearl Project, a faculty-student investigation into the Pearl’s murder.
In 2003, Nomani challenged rules at her mosque in Morgantown that required women to enter through a back door and pray in a secluded balcony. She was put on trial at her mosque to be banished. The New York Times wrote about her “Rosa Parks-style activism.” She was the lead organizer of the woman-led Muslim prayer in New York City on March 18, 2005. In September 2006, she co-founded an organization with other Muslim women, Muslims for Peace.
Tickets are $25 reserved section, $15 general or $10 for students, and will be available after Feb. 4 through ticketmaster.com or the NHCC Box Office, 724-4771, nhccnm.org.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at March 6, 2008 10:01 AM