This article is part of the Religious Freedom Reframed series, which is exploring perspectives on religious freedom that have historically been left out of public discourse, as well as implications for individuals, institutions, and society overall. In this series, authors will use a public justice framework to explore narratives that are traditionally left out of the conversation on religious freedom. This series is designed to introduce fresh perspectives, feature new voices, and examine historical and present injustices in the application of religious freedom. The Center for Public Justice, a Christian faith-based organization with a strong commitment to religious freedom, has intentionally invited authors from diverse faith traditions and perspectives on religious freedom to share their insights and experiences of religious freedom in the United States.
The Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality & Equality (WISE) is a nonprofit faith-based organization founded by Daisy Khan to promote Muslim women’s rights based on the spiritual precepts and practices central to Islam. I had the privilege of sitting down with Daisy Khan recently as she reflected on the sacred beliefs that are activated in her vocational and organizational work. She notes that, for all of its challenges, America’s commitment to institutional pluralism and religious freedom enabled her to form a distinctive organization like WISE.
BY DAISY KHAN AND CHELSEA LANGSTON BOMBINO
Chelsea Langston Bombino (CLB): In another interview published in Religion Unplugged, you shared about how you came to be a leader for Muslim women’s voices post-9/11. Can you share more with us?
Daisy Khan (DK): I started out as an architectural designer who was on a career path for 25 years working in corporate America. My reality changed after 9/11. I was married to an imam whose mosque was blocks from ground zero. The horrific attack became very personal for me, as it took place in my neighborhood, in my city and was attributed to people of my own faith.
In a church where I was lecturing, a little old lady in her 80s asked me a question about women’s status in Islam. I immediately responded that in seventh-century Arabia, Muslim women were granted many rights — like the right to divorce, to own property, to education and to inherit. These rights, I pointed out, were divinely granted to women more than 1,400 years ago, whereas Western women only gained them in the last 100 years. Confused and perplexed, the little old lady asked, “Then, can you explain why an Afghan woman was gunned down in a soccer stadium? I froze, as I was angry at my inability to do anything for Afghan women. Upon seeing my anguish, she asked a life altering question, “Then dear, just tell me what YOU are doing about it!” Her profound question stayed with me. I repeatedly questioned myself about how, if I was the most empowered Muslim woman living in the most powerful country in the world, what was I doing for Afghan women? And more importantly, if not ME, then WHO? So, in a year, I quit my career to dedicate myself to community-building. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I just knew I had to do something.
I was fairly grounded in my faith, and having done a deep study of my own religion, I knew that the answers to social issues could be found in my faith. Then I was introduced to Helen Lakelly Hunt, who founded the Sister Fund (now known as the HLH Family Foundation) to seed faith-based initiatives led by women. And it was in this faith and feminism space, where women’s activism was integral to their faith, I found my home. From Helen, I learned that the anti-slavery movement was started by devout Christian women — White and Black — together.
When I started WISE, it was evident to me right away that there was a gap. There was a need for groups formed by and for Muslim women, which centered the Muslim faith in everything. Now, several years later, we are seeing unprecedented growth in how many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are being formed and started by Muslim women. In the mid twentieth century, when some of the first waves of Muslim immigrants came to the U.S., they established some large networks and NGOs. The leadership and purpose of these groups was male-centric. In fact, it wasn’t until after 9/11 that they began to include women in their leadership. But, in general, women could not find a space within these institutions, so many women created their own organizations.
And that is the genius of America, because there is religious freedom and historical precedents for social movements for new, innovative faith-based organizations to thrive. America has a deep legacy of women's activism, which Muslim women are seizing to form groups to advocate for their rights, and community well-being, in addition to other important social issues. American Muslim women are also inspired by women in early Islam, who were literally by the side of the Prophet, fighting the good fight and conducting social justice work. Many Muslim women have created women-centric faith-based organizations, because they saw a gap in their communities, some organizations started by women were born in their living rooms with almost no financial resources.
One of my roles is as Program Officer with the Fetzer Institute. The Institute recently released a Study on Spirituality in America which shows that most people in America identify as both religious and spiritual. This seems to align with what I hear you saying about WISE. The study also revealed that for those who identify deeply with their spirituality, their spiritual identity is correlated with pro-social behaviors with respect to service and citizenship. There is a new study that concluded Muslims were more likely than any other religious group to volunteer more time, more regularly — 66% of Muslim study respondents volunteered more than two hours a month. Can you shed some light on these types of findings?
Well, the origin story of the naming of WISE is relevant here. When I was trying to come up with the name WISE, I really wanted it to ring at a deeper level than only activism. I wanted to couch it in terms of going to the deepest part of the well. You know, I said something like I really wanted to cultivate the depths of the spiritual wisdom within Islam. In 2005, we came up with acronym [WISE] for Women's Islamic Initiative on Spirituality and Equality because we didn't want to hide the fact that we were Muslim, although it was quite risky at the time.
“Justice needs distinct faith-based civil society organizations working together, and sometimes even disagreeing with each other, to be fully realized. ”
I wanted us to be true to who we were because I learned from Suffragettes who engaged in Christian faith-based activism that you can have a lot of impact if you couch your activism within the values of your faith tradition. As an example, In Islam, all human beings are created equal and the teachings of the Prophet heavily emphasize human equality. We also have a very strong concept of justice. In the Quran, justice takes as much priority as belief in God. So justice, we know, transcends considerations of race, religion, color and creed. We are taught to do justice together. In community. And in public. Justice needs distinct faith-based civil society organizations working together, and sometimes even disagreeing with each other, to be fully realized.
And the Prophet not only talks about equality for men and women, but really the struggle for all humanity. This is why, Muslims are so engaged in civic engagement having to do with race relations and anti-racism. They engage in public policy advocacy, in protests, in voter education. Many Muslim women have taken up this mantle, by playing multiple roles every day. They may be doctors, architects, social workers, hospitality workers, by day. And then in the remainder of their days they are sitting on boards, volunteering in their communities, engaged in their Mosques, engaged in their children’s schools, engaged in voting efforts and political parties.
You speak about the Islamic principles that support individual personal freedom for women, and how that connects to women’s roles in organizations, whether it's their workplaces, houses of worship, community services agencies, political structures or their own families. What beliefs and teachings in Islam point to the religious rights of women to engage in these institutions of private and public life?
A Muslim woman is a moral, ethical, spiritual, and intellectual being who can voice her ideas, beliefs, and opinions to fully participate in the construction of a resilient, adaptive, and prosperous society. Prophet Muhammad created such a spiritually engaged milieu for his followers that women felt confident to freely speak about their concerns, transmit and share religious knowledge with their fellow Muslims. Aisha, the Prophet’s wife, was known to regularly critique the reliability of the Prophet’s sayings from other narrators. Her freedom of speech allowed her to improve the accuracy of her community’s religious understanding. Without this right to exercise free speech, there would not exist much of the sacred knowledge that Muslims rely on to this day. The Quran also discusses engaging in community as a way of revealing the divine plan and since we are all children of the same God, faith can play an integral role in bringing communities together.
That leads me to come back to spiritual freedom: Freedom of religion or belief. What are your views of advancing freedom of religion or belief, for women, within the context of Islamic precepts and teachings of the Prophet? And how is religious freedom connected to advancing larger human rights paradigms?
The highest form of freedom is freedom itself. The Quran explicitly addresses freedom of belief, “Had your Lord so willed, ‘O Prophet’, all ‘people’ on earth would have certainly believed, everyone single one of them. Will you then force people to become believers?” (CQ 19:99) and in another verse that bears no possible other interpretation, God says, ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error.” (CQ 2:256) Muslims are responsible only to their God and that no authority on earth has the right to be God’s representative. Even the Prophet was not allowed to watch over the deeds of Muslims.
The shared values that link Islam and America, is pluralism. The Quran teaches us that every human being is created in the divine image. This is also a Christian concept whose goal is to protect the freedom of humans to pursue the divine rights of their endowments from the Creator. The Quran says, we have created you into nations and tribes so you might get to know one another. This pluralism directs Muslims to dialogue with people of other faiths so they may get to know one another. It also respects the rights of people to practice what they believe, in worship, but also in activism
At the heart of America is the concept of — ‘from the one to the many’ united by a shared convictions that all humans are created equal, endowed by the Creator with freedom and responsibilities to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the foundational value of America and a fundamental core of what defines America as opposed to how other Western nations define their values. In America, religion is valued and there is ample space for religious activism through diverse religious groups with missions and causes. And we understand that religion is defined not only by the letter of its teaching, but how communities actualize its wisdom. And how they implement its virtues in their lives, and why faith communities are so politically active, socially involved and champions for human rights.
And this is why faith communities are capable of mobilizing many people against a variety of social challenges, whether it's intolerance, hate or extremism. So it's only when we overlook the importance of faith that we fail to mobilize large portions of grassroots constituencies. These faith-based groups rely upon their religious freedom every day to advance social justice and human flourishing.
Daisy Khan is an award-winning speaker, author, activist, commentator, and the founder of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), the largest global network of Muslim women committed to peacebuilding, gender equality, and human dignity. Formerly, Khan served as Executive Director of American Society for Muslim Advancement for eighteen years, where she was hailed as a bridge builder for promoting cultural and religious harmony through groundbreaking intra faith programs like Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow and inter-faith arts programs like Same Difference, Cordoba Bread Fest.
Chelsea Langston Bombino is a believer in sacred communities, a wife, and a mother. She serves as a program officer with the Fetzer Institute and a fellow with the Center for Public Justice.
READ MORE FROM THIS SERIES
Introducing Religious Freedom Reframed by Joshua Seiersen and Chelsea Langston Bombino
The Paradox of the Black Church and Religious Freedom by Jacqueline C. Rivers, Ph.D.
Religious Freedom Reframed: A Conversation with the Next Generation by Minister Kerwin Webb
Correcting Blindness in the Religious Freedom Landscape by Joshua Seiersen
Religious Freedom to End Human Trafficking by Rev. Dr. Denise Strothers
The Nation’s Mosque: Embodying Love Across Difference by Imam Talib Shareef, Brother Albert, Ismail Royer, and Chelsea Langston Bombino
American Identity Reframed by Amar D. Peterman
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