The Lady Imam

How amina wadud's Life and Faith Changed the World

By: Carla Power

The soul-stirring intersectional biography of the most famous Islamic woman scholar working today, from the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist author of If the Oceans Were Ink and Home, Land, Security.

A feminist scholar-activist, single mother of five, and queer advocate, amina wadud has led a struggle against Islam’s patriarchal establishment that’s been felt keenly all over the world. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X before her, wadud has mobilized faith’s potential as an engine of equality. Yet this American trail-blazer’s story has never been told in book form—until now.

Born Mary Teasley, the daughter of a Methodist preacher, wadud grew up in Maryland with a rare vantage on socioeconomic divides, living through poverty and her sister’s death from an illegal abortion. A gifted student, teenage wadud was sent to live with affluent white families in Weston, Massachusetts. After cross-country hitchhiking and a stint in a Buddhist ashram, she converted to Islam as a twenty-year-old Ivy League student.

wadud devoted her life to studying the Qur’an and challenged centuries of patriarchal interpretations, finding in it equality for all. In Manhattan in 2005, she became the world’s most famous—and infamous—Islamic scholar when she became the first woman in 1400 years to lead men and women together in public Friday prayers.

The Lady Imam chronicles the life of a singular figure not only in Islam, but also in feminism, Black history, and gender studies. With unprecedented access through years of interviews and archival research, Carla Power has written the definitive account of wadud's extraordinary life while shedding light on our deepest questions about faith, family, and social justice.

Critic reviews

Advance Praise for The Lady Imam

“Amina Wadud's life is a testament to what it means to labor for justice from inside a faith tradition—to love it enough to transform it. Carla Power's portrait is intimate, bold, and necessary. In wadud's struggle, we recognize our own: the cost of standing in truth, the long labor of changing hearts and minds and laws, the spiritual fire that makes it possible to keep on. The Lady Imam is right on time to ignite our courage.”—Valarie Kaur, bestselling author of See No Stranger and Sage Warrior

“Carla Power’s The Lady Imam is a ‘must read,’ a masterful study of the life and reformist thought of amina wadud, a ground-breaking Muslim feminist and activist for women’s equality and rights.”—John L. Esposito, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and founding director of Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown


Praise for Home, Land, Security

“In these riveting, character-driven pages, Power encourages us to resist moral binaries of ‘good and evil’ as we work toward countering terrorist groups—and the loved ones held in their sway.”—Esquire

“Astounding . . . interweaving intimate character profiles and in-depth research, this is a nuanced look at a critical yet overlooked front in the fight against extremism.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review