A timely and soul-stirring biography of one of the most influential Islamic woman scholars of 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 decades-long struggle against Islam’s patriarchal establishment. Like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X before her, wadud has mobilized faith’s moral power as an engine for justice and equality. Yet the extraordinary story of this American trailblazer 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 America’s socioeconomic divides, shaped by childhood poverty and the devastating loss of her sister to an illegal abortion. A gifted student, a 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 20-year-old Ivy League student --- beginning a lifelong spiritual and intellectual journey.

wadud devoted her life to studying the Qur’an, challenging centuries of patriarchal interpretations and uncovering a vision of radical equality within Islam’s sacred text. In Manhattan in 2005, she became the world’s most famous --- and infamous --- Islamic scholar when she led a mixed-gender Friday prayer service, becoming the first woman in 1,400 years to publicly lead women and men together in prayer. The historic act ignited global debate and inspired a generation of Muslim reformers.

THE LADY IMAM chronicles the life of a singular figure whose influence reaches beyond Islamic scholarship into feminism, Black history and global movements for gender justice. With unprecedented access through years of interviews and archival research, Carla Power delivers the definitive portrait of wadud’s extraordinary life while illuminating the enduring struggle to reconcile faith, family and the pursuit of justice.