Mosaic

Living Islam Out Loud

COMING TO A VENUE NEAR YOU

Saleemah Abdul Ghafur, Su'ad Abdul Khabeer, Yousra Y. Fazili and Precious Rasheeda Muhammad - 4 of the authors of Living Islam Out Loud (www.livingislamoutloud.com) will be coming over from the US from the 5-15^th June.

You may already know about the visit, or be planning to meet them at one of the meetings and talks that Faith Matters has scheduled, but if not, here are some events you may want to come to:

Please contact michelle@faith-matters.co.uk or call 0207 485 1704/ 07870 633770 with any questions.

Saleemah Abdul Ghafur is an activist and continues to blaze a trail in women's leadership in the Muslim community in the US and abroad.  In addition, she is the creator of Malaria No More's faith-based programming, which activates faith-based communities worldwide around the eradication and prevention of malaria.  As part of Saleemah's commitment to interfaith dialogue and action, she serves as the founding Executive Director for 100 People of Faith, a body of prominent leaders from the world's major religions that seeks to unite people from across faith lines through humanitarian service.   Saleemah became a sought-after speaker following the publication of her 2005 anthology on Muslim women in the US, Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, most recently presenting at Yale University, The Oxford Literary Festival, and Agnes Scott College.  She has been profiled in The New York Times, Newsweek and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. 

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer is as an activist-scholar-artist. A doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University, her research interests include youth, race and religion, and popular culture studies. She is also a Senior Project Advisor for the upcoming PBS documentary, New Muslim Cool. A native of Brooklyn, NYC Su'ad has been writing creatively since her youth. Her poetry series "A Day in the Life," appeared in the anthology Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak. A graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Su'ad has travelled extensively and lectured on campuses in the US and abroad

Yousra Y. Fazili is a Kashmiri-American attorney who will soon be living in the DC area, consulting on US government policy.  She recently received her Masters in Theological Studies from  Harvard Divinity School, where she was the recipient of a World Religions Grant. She is also a researcher with Harvard Law School's Islamic Finance Project. Her primary research focuses on inter-gender dynamics and sexuality in Islamic law. A graduate of Brown University, Yousra has travelled to Egypt as a Fulbright Scholar where she studied Arabic and conducted research on modernization in Islamic law. She has worked for several corporate law firms, the Department of Justice, and the UN. She has published works in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, the Encyclopaedia of Islam in the United States, and Living Islam Out Loud. She is currently editing a monograph on Microfinance and Islamic Law for Harvard Law School.  

Precious Rasheeda Muhammad - author, lecturer, researcher, poetess and publisher-is not only nationally known for her ability to educate and inspire audiences of diverse faiths and backgrounds about America's unique Islamic heritage, but also for her ability to empower them with the tools to build community through a deeper understanding of history (www.preciousspeaks.com). Precious holds a B.A. in Religion from The University of Iowa and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She brings more than a decade of experience and commitment to community and interfaith work including working on Capitol Hill, chaplaincy at a 770-bed hospital and in person dialogue with seminarian inmates at Sing Sing prison. Precious currently works as a Program Associate with the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions helping to plan the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions to be held in Melbourne, Australia. Precious's research and writings have been featured at the Smithsonian, on the radio, television, and in print including works published by Oxford University Press, Beacon Press, Rodale Press, Greenwood Press and interviews on NPR. Precious is also founder of Journal of Islam in America Press, an educational publishing company dedicated to publishing a broad range of titles on the growth and development of Islam in America and the Muslim American experience.

Other events

• The Eid Gala dinner 2010: a fundraising dinner in aid of the Pakistan flood emergency
• Pakistan High Commission
• Mentors Thank you dinner
• West Midlands Celebrates
• London Networking @ RCS - 10th May