"Breaking Our Hearts: Exploring the Lives & Legacies of Women of Color in American Islam" Khutbah by Dr. Sylvia Chan-Malik (1/25/19)

Khateebah Sylvia Chan-Malik delivers a rousing khutbah for The Women's Mosque of America's 4th Year Anniversary on January 25th, 2019. In her khutbah, Dr. Chan-Malik highlights the lives of Black Muslim women who forged the way for Islam to take root in America, she asks the congregation to reflect on how the American Muslim community can pay homage to those who came before us. and she shares her journey to Islam as a Chinese-American woman growing up in Oakland, CA, where Islam was a rich part of the cultural landscape. She ends with her hopes and dreams for her own daughters and for Muslim women everywhere.

Bio:
Dr. Sylvia Chan-Malik is an Associate Professor in the Departments of American and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. At Rutgers, she directs the Social Justice Program and serves as Chair of of the Faculty Advisory Board for the Center of Islamic Life at Rutgers University (CILRU), and she teaches courses on race and ethnicity in the United States, Islam in/and America, social justice movements, feminist methodologies, and multiethnic literature and culture in the U.S. Dr. Chan-Malik is the author of Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam (NYU Press, 2018), which offers an alternative narrative of American Islam in the 20th-21st century that centers the lives, subjectivities, voice, and representations of women of color. Her writings are also featured in numerous anthologies and scholarly journals. She speaks frequently on issues of U.S. Muslim politics and culture, Islam and gender, and racial and gender politics in the U.S., and her commentary has appeared in venues such as The Intercept, Daily Beast, Slate News, Huffington Post, Patheos, Religion News Service, and others. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Mills College.