PBS Documentary to air June 15
“The Mosque in Morgantown”
“The Mosque in Morgantown”
Background:
The documentary “The Mosque in Morgantown,” about journalist/author Asra Nomani (“Standing
Alone”), will air nationally on PBS on June 15, at 10 p.m. ET as part of the “America at the Crossroads”
series. The film chronicles the attempt of Asra, who was born in India and raised in the U.S., to challenge
her increasingly conservative mosque in her hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Asra, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is now co-director of the Pearl Project investigation into
the murder of Daniel Pearl at Georgetown University.
New Film Offers a Window into a Small-town Mosque
Uncovering a Microcosm of Muslim Life and a Struggle over Ideology
“The Mosque in Morgantown” presents an even-handed chronicle of life in a West Virginia Muslim
community as it struggles to define itself in a post-9/11 world. The vérité-style documentary features author
Asra Nomani, now co-director of the Pearl Project investigation at Georgetown University and a former
Wall Street Journal reporter, as she pushes for change at her hometown mosque. It also highlights the very
different path to change being driven by the community’s moderates. Through engaging interviews and
expertly shot pivotal moments, “The Mosque in Morgantown” deftly frames this local conflict as a lens to
explore the larger dilemmas facing American Islam.
The catalyst for the story came with Nomani’s return to her West Virginia hometown of Morgantown
following dramatic personal events. As a reporter working in Pakistan after September 11, 2001, she had
faced a double shock: a surprise pregnancy and abandonment by the man she thought would be her
husband, then the murder of her dear friend and fellow journalist Daniel Pearl at the hands of Muslim
extremists. Still reeling and with a son to raise, she returned to Morgantown and discovered that the
mosque had been taken over by men she saw as extremists. “The Mosque in Morgantown ” follows what
happens when she decides to fight back against their exclusionism against women — angering even the
mosque’s moderates. As the film unfolds, it tells a story of competing paths to social change, American
identity, and the nature of religion itself.
The film also features Christine Arja, a Muslim convert who initially opposes Nomani’s efforts but
eventually becomes her only ally in the mosque; and Ihtishaam Qazi, a moderate mosque leader who
becomes Nomani’s strongest opponent as he struggles to balance competing viewpoints in the community.
Brittany Huckabee, the film’s producer, explained the decision to make the film: “The story in Morgantown
The documentary “The Mosque in Morgantown,” about journalist/author Asra Nomani (“Standing
Alone”), will air nationally on PBS on June 15, at 10 p.m. ET as part of the “America at the Crossroads”
series. The film chronicles the attempt of Asra, who was born in India and raised in the U.S., to challenge
her increasingly conservative mosque in her hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia.
Asra, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is now co-director of the Pearl Project investigation into
the murder of Daniel Pearl at Georgetown University.
New Film Offers a Window into a Small-town Mosque
Uncovering a Microcosm of Muslim Life and a Struggle over Ideology
“The Mosque in Morgantown” presents an even-handed chronicle of life in a West Virginia Muslim
community as it struggles to define itself in a post-9/11 world. The vérité-style documentary features author
Asra Nomani, now co-director of the Pearl Project investigation at Georgetown University and a former
Wall Street Journal reporter, as she pushes for change at her hometown mosque. It also highlights the very
different path to change being driven by the community’s moderates. Through engaging interviews and
expertly shot pivotal moments, “The Mosque in Morgantown” deftly frames this local conflict as a lens to
explore the larger dilemmas facing American Islam.
The catalyst for the story came with Nomani’s return to her West Virginia hometown of Morgantown
following dramatic personal events. As a reporter working in Pakistan after September 11, 2001, she had
faced a double shock: a surprise pregnancy and abandonment by the man she thought would be her
husband, then the murder of her dear friend and fellow journalist Daniel Pearl at the hands of Muslim
extremists. Still reeling and with a son to raise, she returned to Morgantown and discovered that the
mosque had been taken over by men she saw as extremists. “The Mosque in Morgantown ” follows what
happens when she decides to fight back against their exclusionism against women — angering even the
mosque’s moderates. As the film unfolds, it tells a story of competing paths to social change, American
identity, and the nature of religion itself.
The film also features Christine Arja, a Muslim convert who initially opposes Nomani’s efforts but
eventually becomes her only ally in the mosque; and Ihtishaam Qazi, a moderate mosque leader who
becomes Nomani’s strongest opponent as he struggles to balance competing viewpoints in the community.
Brittany Huckabee, the film’s producer, explained the decision to make the film: “The story in Morgantown
(Top) Asra Nomani, current director of The Pearl Project at
Georgetown University, stands before her hometown
mosque in Morgantown, West Virginia [Credit: Gabriel
Goodenough]; (Above) Nomani with her son. [Credit:
Version One Productions, Inc.]
Georgetown University, stands before her hometown
mosque in Morgantown, West Virginia [Credit: Gabriel
Goodenough]; (Above) Nomani with her son. [Credit:
Version One Productions, Inc.]
is really about the dilemma of moderate Muslims, and that’s a story we don’t often see covered in the media. But it’s an absolutely critical part of the evolving saga of
Islam in America , and at the same time I think it’s a story to which people of all faiths can relate. Hopefully this film can open a window for non-Muslims to understand
what goes on inside the local mosque — and hold up a mirror for Muslims to reflect on their own experiences.”
An interview with Asra Nomani
By Heidi M. Pascual
HMP: I admire your determination to expose a cultural anomaly that exists in many countries of like beliefs and extremely conservative traditions. What would it take
for Muslim American women to change tradition and correct this cultural anomaly of treating women as second-class citizens? What exactly do you want to change?
AN: Thank you very much for your kind words of support. In virtually every mosque in the world, Muslim women are treated like second-class citizens, not much
unlike African Americans were treated at White churches in the United States before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In the worst situations, Muslim women aren’t
allowed to even enter into a mosque. In the best of situations, but in a few cases, Muslim women are allowed in the main prayer halls but must pray behind the men and
never dare attempt to stand at the pulpit. In just a few mosques that I know about, women are allowed to pray in parallel sections to the men, and they are allowed to be
leaders, although not imams to mixed gender congregations. For the most part, mosques are men’s clubs.
For Muslim American women to change tradition and correct this cultural anomaly, we are going to have to deeply understand that mosques are not just places to
bow our heads in prostration to God. They are important institutional centers of ideology, philosophy, political activism and identity in the Muslim community. We have to
fight to take back our mosques from ideologues who want to practice a puritanical brand of Islam that segregates and silences women if we want to fight for a positive,
socially just expression of Islam in the world.
I want us to take the “men’s club” sign off the front doors of mosques and put up signs that say, loud and clear, “Welcome all.” We need to open the doors of our
mosques to our community so we can lift the spirits of everyone, including women and girls, empowering them to be fully-expressed members of our community.
HMP: Do you think many other Muslim women in America feel the same way as you do? Are we talking here of the younger generation?
AN: I know that many other Muslim women in America feel the same frustrations and hopes that I do. I once thought that I was alone. Through the power of the
Internet, I have been connected with a network of like-minded women — and men. My cell phone directory is now filled with the names of Muslim women with names like
“Ameena” and “Samina” and “Saleemah” and “Mohja,” who feel the heartache that I have felt, excluded, marginalized and discarded by our Muslim communities.
We have succeeded in the rest of the world, rising to the highest ranks of our professions, in a post-feminist Western world where our Muslim parents also told us: “Yes,
you can be everything you want to be.” But when we have returned to our communities to share our skills and talents, we’ve been told, “Sister, take the back door!” Or
when we protest: “Sister, be quiet.”
It’s our younger generation that is acting, but our older generation supports and inspires us. My 60-something mother told me, “I always believed what you believe.
You just have the courage to act.” And, just about every Friday that I went to my local mosque in Morgantown, my mother was with me. She told me, “I start getting
migraine headaches Thursday night,” but she would join me. Like so many who had to silently accept the status quo, she believes in gender equity in the mosque. And
she wanted me to know: She had my back.
HMP: How do you feel as a “pioneer” in this effort? How does your family treat you as such? Do you feel isolated as a voice in the wilderness?
AN: I have to admit it is a lonely experience being the agitator for change. Sometimes, you only have the clarity of your convictions to keep you company. That’s why I
have been so fortunate to have parents and a family that stand firmly by me.
In the early days, my father and I had many a heated conversation in the kitchen of my parents’ home when I would come down from the women’s balcony, angry and
hurt, hardly having been able to understand the disembodied sermon trickling into the women’s section. I was chafing under the patriarchal regime of our mosque, and I
argued with the closest symbol of patriarchy in my life, my father. He would always listen — and he would agree: the women were being wronged.
When I decided to go through the front door of our mosque and into the main prayer hall, I went inside with my mother, my young niece and nephew, and my son, then a
year old. Behind us — but with us: my father, who cared for my son while we prayed. My father lost his standing in the community because of this struggle. As a family,
we were disinvited from the community potluck dinner parties.
But an introduction to the “Power and Control Wheel,” used in understanding domestic violence, allowed me to realize something important: social isolation is a
mechanism used to shut down anyone who challenges power and control. And you cannot take it personally.
With new friends, like Christine Arja — a then-convert to Islam in the community also alienated by the sexism — my family and I learned something important: we could
throw our own pot luck dinner parties. And have a lot more fun.
HMP: What can the larger American community do to help you?
AN: We are blessed in America to be a nation that believes in cultural tolerance and pluralism. But I would gently suggest to Americans that progress in the Muslim
community would be better advanced if Americans didn’t give fundamentalist, puritanical Islam a pass in the name of political correctness, just as they wouldn’t give the
Ku Klux Klan a pass. It’s important that we stand up for principles of gender equity and tolerance and not excuse sexism and intolerance by saying, “Oh, that’s the way
they do it.” Or: “Oh, we shouldn’t give them a hard time. They’re getting harassed so many other places.”
The puritanical interpretation of Islam that shuts women out of mosques or puts them in back closets is just as reprehensible as the kind of Christianity that did the
same to African Americans. We need to practice equal opportunity critical thinking.
Next time you go to an open house at a mosque, tell them that women have an Islamic right to be in the main halls, without partitions, shower curtains or room dividers in
front of them. Trust me, the prophet of Islam did not throw one-way mirrors in front of women in the mosque in the 7th century, like too many mosques in America do in the
21st century.
We need to seek from Muslims the same progress we have asked our churches, synagogues and other places of worship to practice.
HMP: Any other information you may want to include about you and your efforts?
AN: It’s critically important that Muslims take back our mosques, if we are going to see any progress in the way Islam is expressed in the world. I hope that the
conversation started by “The Mosque in Morgantown” will allow us to move to the next level of community organizing and engagement, realizing that our Muslim
community will only be better served if our mosques move from being men’s clubs to community centers, where everyone feels welcome and uplifted.
The example of the planning for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks reveals that mosques in small town Germany were used as safe houses for criminality. We need to recognize
that no matter how small our town, no matter how small our community, our mosques should be safe houses with love, or “wadud,” one of the 99 names of Allah, as the
guiding principle. That’s how we’re going to change the way Islam is expressed in the world, one town at a time.
Islam in America , and at the same time I think it’s a story to which people of all faiths can relate. Hopefully this film can open a window for non-Muslims to understand
what goes on inside the local mosque — and hold up a mirror for Muslims to reflect on their own experiences.”
An interview with Asra Nomani
By Heidi M. Pascual
HMP: I admire your determination to expose a cultural anomaly that exists in many countries of like beliefs and extremely conservative traditions. What would it take
for Muslim American women to change tradition and correct this cultural anomaly of treating women as second-class citizens? What exactly do you want to change?
AN: Thank you very much for your kind words of support. In virtually every mosque in the world, Muslim women are treated like second-class citizens, not much
unlike African Americans were treated at White churches in the United States before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In the worst situations, Muslim women aren’t
allowed to even enter into a mosque. In the best of situations, but in a few cases, Muslim women are allowed in the main prayer halls but must pray behind the men and
never dare attempt to stand at the pulpit. In just a few mosques that I know about, women are allowed to pray in parallel sections to the men, and they are allowed to be
leaders, although not imams to mixed gender congregations. For the most part, mosques are men’s clubs.
For Muslim American women to change tradition and correct this cultural anomaly, we are going to have to deeply understand that mosques are not just places to
bow our heads in prostration to God. They are important institutional centers of ideology, philosophy, political activism and identity in the Muslim community. We have to
fight to take back our mosques from ideologues who want to practice a puritanical brand of Islam that segregates and silences women if we want to fight for a positive,
socially just expression of Islam in the world.
I want us to take the “men’s club” sign off the front doors of mosques and put up signs that say, loud and clear, “Welcome all.” We need to open the doors of our
mosques to our community so we can lift the spirits of everyone, including women and girls, empowering them to be fully-expressed members of our community.
HMP: Do you think many other Muslim women in America feel the same way as you do? Are we talking here of the younger generation?
AN: I know that many other Muslim women in America feel the same frustrations and hopes that I do. I once thought that I was alone. Through the power of the
Internet, I have been connected with a network of like-minded women — and men. My cell phone directory is now filled with the names of Muslim women with names like
“Ameena” and “Samina” and “Saleemah” and “Mohja,” who feel the heartache that I have felt, excluded, marginalized and discarded by our Muslim communities.
We have succeeded in the rest of the world, rising to the highest ranks of our professions, in a post-feminist Western world where our Muslim parents also told us: “Yes,
you can be everything you want to be.” But when we have returned to our communities to share our skills and talents, we’ve been told, “Sister, take the back door!” Or
when we protest: “Sister, be quiet.”
It’s our younger generation that is acting, but our older generation supports and inspires us. My 60-something mother told me, “I always believed what you believe.
You just have the courage to act.” And, just about every Friday that I went to my local mosque in Morgantown, my mother was with me. She told me, “I start getting
migraine headaches Thursday night,” but she would join me. Like so many who had to silently accept the status quo, she believes in gender equity in the mosque. And
she wanted me to know: She had my back.
HMP: How do you feel as a “pioneer” in this effort? How does your family treat you as such? Do you feel isolated as a voice in the wilderness?
AN: I have to admit it is a lonely experience being the agitator for change. Sometimes, you only have the clarity of your convictions to keep you company. That’s why I
have been so fortunate to have parents and a family that stand firmly by me.
In the early days, my father and I had many a heated conversation in the kitchen of my parents’ home when I would come down from the women’s balcony, angry and
hurt, hardly having been able to understand the disembodied sermon trickling into the women’s section. I was chafing under the patriarchal regime of our mosque, and I
argued with the closest symbol of patriarchy in my life, my father. He would always listen — and he would agree: the women were being wronged.
When I decided to go through the front door of our mosque and into the main prayer hall, I went inside with my mother, my young niece and nephew, and my son, then a
year old. Behind us — but with us: my father, who cared for my son while we prayed. My father lost his standing in the community because of this struggle. As a family,
we were disinvited from the community potluck dinner parties.
But an introduction to the “Power and Control Wheel,” used in understanding domestic violence, allowed me to realize something important: social isolation is a
mechanism used to shut down anyone who challenges power and control. And you cannot take it personally.
With new friends, like Christine Arja — a then-convert to Islam in the community also alienated by the sexism — my family and I learned something important: we could
throw our own pot luck dinner parties. And have a lot more fun.
HMP: What can the larger American community do to help you?
AN: We are blessed in America to be a nation that believes in cultural tolerance and pluralism. But I would gently suggest to Americans that progress in the Muslim
community would be better advanced if Americans didn’t give fundamentalist, puritanical Islam a pass in the name of political correctness, just as they wouldn’t give the
Ku Klux Klan a pass. It’s important that we stand up for principles of gender equity and tolerance and not excuse sexism and intolerance by saying, “Oh, that’s the way
they do it.” Or: “Oh, we shouldn’t give them a hard time. They’re getting harassed so many other places.”
The puritanical interpretation of Islam that shuts women out of mosques or puts them in back closets is just as reprehensible as the kind of Christianity that did the
same to African Americans. We need to practice equal opportunity critical thinking.
Next time you go to an open house at a mosque, tell them that women have an Islamic right to be in the main halls, without partitions, shower curtains or room dividers in
front of them. Trust me, the prophet of Islam did not throw one-way mirrors in front of women in the mosque in the 7th century, like too many mosques in America do in the
21st century.
We need to seek from Muslims the same progress we have asked our churches, synagogues and other places of worship to practice.
HMP: Any other information you may want to include about you and your efforts?
AN: It’s critically important that Muslims take back our mosques, if we are going to see any progress in the way Islam is expressed in the world. I hope that the
conversation started by “The Mosque in Morgantown” will allow us to move to the next level of community organizing and engagement, realizing that our Muslim
community will only be better served if our mosques move from being men’s clubs to community centers, where everyone feels welcome and uplifted.
The example of the planning for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks reveals that mosques in small town Germany were used as safe houses for criminality. We need to recognize
that no matter how small our town, no matter how small our community, our mosques should be safe houses with love, or “wadud,” one of the 99 names of Allah, as the
guiding principle. That’s how we’re going to change the way Islam is expressed in the world, one town at a time.
