Born with Wings at Busboys and Poets Books
Date and Time
Jun 4, 2018 6:30 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Jun 4, 2018 6:30 pm
14th & V
Raised in a progressive Muslim family in the shadows of the Himalayan mountains, where she attended a Catholic girls’ school, Daisy Khan experienced culture shock when her family sent her to the States to attend high school in a mostly Jewish Long Island suburb. Ambitious and talented, she quickly climbed the corporate ladder after college as an architectural designer in New York City. Though she loved the freedom that came with being a career woman, she felt that something was missing from her life. One day a friend suggested that she visit a Sufi mosque in Tribeca. To her surprise, she discovered a home there, eventually marrying the mosque’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, and finding herself, as his wife, at the center of a community in which women turned to her for advice. Guided by her faith, she embraced her role as a women’s advocate and has devised innovative ways to help end child marriage, fight against genital mutilation, and, most recently, educate young Muslims to resist the false promises of ISIS recruiters.
Born with Wings is a powerful, moving, and eye-opening account of Daisy Khan’s inspiring journey—of her self-actualization and her success in opening doors for other Muslim women and building bridges between cultures. It powerfully demonstrates what one woman can do—with faith, love, and resilience.
Join us as Daisy tells her story.
This event is co-sponsored by the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) was established in 2006 as a faith-based grassroots social justice movement. In 2015, WISE became an independent organization and currently operates as a partner project under the Fund for the City of New York (FCNY), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Vision: Muslim women leading the creation of a peaceful and prosperous world anchored in gender equality and human dignity.
Mission: WISE convenes and promotes solidarity among Muslim women leaders so they can collectively pursue social change. We amplify Muslim women voices at all levels of political, economic, religious, and social discourse. We provide faith based knowledge and toolkits to end injustices such as female genital mutilation, child marriage, domestic violence, and violent extremism.
Our Approach: WISE accomplishes our mission by collaborating across faith and gender lines, and in cooperation with both private and public secular institutions.
Daisy Khan is the founder and executive director of the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), a global organization that works on behalf of women’s rights in Islam and initiated the creation of the first global women’s shura (advisory) council, which advances women’s rights through scriptural interpretation. After finding herself at the center of a national debate surrounding the Ground Zero controversy, Khan emerged as a leader in the public eye. She served as executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, where she spent eighteen years creating groundbreaking intra- and interfaith programs based on cultural and religious harmony and interfaith collaboration. She has won numerous awards for her work as an advocate for Muslim women’s rights around the world and is a frequent media commentator. She lives with her husband in the New York City tri-state area.
