Daisy Khan is a highly educated Muslim community leader for whom spirituality, the promotion of peace, gender equality and human dignity all go hand in hand. Born with Wings is an intimate and engaging portrayal of the conflicted journey Khan's faith takes after she moves to the United States from Kashmir, and her activism on behalf of Muslim women worldwide.
Khan is searingly honest about her crisis of faith following the 1979 Iranian revolution and the hijacking of Islam by extremists. Working as a young architect in New York, she found herself unable to share any aspect of religion with those who committed terrible atrocities in its name. Eventually she found grace and a spiritual home at a TriBeCa mosque and married the mosque's imam, a charismatic, thoroughly modern and open-minded religious leader who fully supports her reformist work.
Khan walks a path similar to that of young Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai in her tenacity and fearlessness when faced with ignorance and extremist ideology. Both have that fire-in-the-belly determination to overcome obstacles thrown in their path by religious zealots and both understand that peace often comes at a price. Despite resistance from many quarters, Khan is a tireless ambassador for the rights of women, a tolerant and balanced interpretation of the Quran and the pursuit of peace and inclusion.
Born with Wings is gilded with references to the mystical poetry of Rumi, which serves as serene inspiration and a guiding light for Khan as she embraces her determination to end the harmful practice of patriarchy within Islam. --Shahina Piyarali, writer and reviewer