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Dr. amina wadud (she/they), the “Lady Imam,” is a pioneering Muslim theologian and activist. Born in 1952, she grew up in the DC suburbs. Their father, Reverend Albert Teasley, inspired them with his unwavering faith and justice. He took her to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington when she was 10, and amina was moved by the spirit of “ethical responsibility” she felt in the crowd. Home wasn’t idyllic, though; they experienced poverty and homelessness. As the middle child with seven siblings, amina experienced the absence of space, resources and safety.
Through a host family educational opportunities for high school program, young amina was exposed to previously inaccessible resources, which turbocharged their curiosity and commitment to justice. They protested the pledge of allegiance and dissections at school, foreshadowing future activism. She also began her pluralistic religious journey, witnessing different Christian denominations and Judaism, by living with Catholics, Unitarian Universalists, and Jews.
During undergraduate studies at UPenn, inspired by the different levels and forms of Islamic practices she saw around her, amina began reading about Islam. They found particular agency in modest dressing, and formalized their conversion with the shahadah in 1972. She changed her name, choosing amina, for the mother of Mohammad, and wadud, meaning “loving,” and honoring her father. Neither name is capitalized, honoring Arabic alphabets.
They found Islam welcoming of their religious pluralism, sharing, “My Islam, first of all, is eclectic. My Islam includes the legacy of my ancestors, so that does mean Christianity and the legacy of my own practices.” At university, they also studied Hinduism in the class room and moved into a Buddhist ashram for personal devotional participation in the Buddhist practice of mediation, which they still do daily.
amina’s faith and intellect spurred them to travel the world—they moved to Libya after graduation, teaching English at university. In the 1980s, as she got her master’s degree, she studied in Egypt, and later taught at universities in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Norway, and Australia, as well as in the States. Their work centers the expansiveness for sexuality and gender within the Qu’ran and Muslim traditions.
In 1989, amina was a founding member of Sisters in Islam (SIS), which is still going strong as a nation pro-faith pro feminist Muslim women’s organization (unique at the time). SIS spawned the global movement of Musawah, launched in 2009, for which amina served as a resource consultant. Fostering equity in Muslim family law, Musawah has produced books and countless papers on gender in Islam, and contributed scholarship to their vision of a more inclusive faith.
In 1994, Amina was invited to give the Friday sermon at a mixed gender mosque in South Africa, an unheard-of act which stoked controversy. Adopted the title of “Lady Imam”, amina lead a mixed-gender prayer in public in South Africa in 2005, which drew protestors and international attention. amina themself says, “My engagement with the queer Muslim community has always been around the places where people claim to guard the boundaries of what is Islam.”
amina began to name their sexuality and gender “relatively late,” finding the vocabulary for their bisexuality and nonbinary gender in the ‘90s, and jokes that “the most queer thing is that I have much fewer [queer relationships] than I would like.” The parent of five and the grandparent of six, amina has married twice, both times to husbands passionate about Islamic studies. She “amenably outgrew” both marriages as she explored her relationships to gender, sexuality, and disability. By centering pluralism and inclusivity within their faith, amina affirms that “diversity […] is the standard. We’re always diverse in some way.” She lives in Indonesia, and maintains citizenship in Oakland, California.
