Communications Archive

What if religion, so often associated with conflict, has always carried within it the resources for peace?

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On February 25, Dr. Yasmin Saikia brought that question to life for residents of Friendship Village. Drawing on decades of research on conflict, reconciliation, and women's leadership across the Muslim world, Dr. Saikia explored how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share a deeper ethical foundation than our public conversations usually acknowledge. The familiar greetings salaam, shalom, and eirene — peace in Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek — are not coincidental parallels. They point to a common vision of human flourishing rooted in justice and dignity that runs through all three Abrahamic traditions.

The lecture also challenged a persistent misconception: that women's leadership in Islam is a modern accommodation or a Western imposition. Dr. Saikia showed that Muslim women have been peacebuilders, scholars, and community anchors from the earliest generations of Islamic history to the present day — not as exceptions, but as part of the tradition's foundation.

The conversation that followed reflected exactly the kind of honest, curious, cross-community exchange that Friendship Village's interfaith series is designed to create. CME-US was glad to be part of it.

Much of what Americans think they know about Muslim women comes from stories told about them rather than stories told by them. 

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In February, we launched Navā/Voice; our new online magazine and digital resource designed to center the voices and lived experiences of American Muslim women.

The inaugural volume focuses on everyday leadership. We know that leadership isn’t always defined by formal titles or public recognition. It takes shape in daily life through the decisions we make within our families, mosques, workplaces, activist spaces, and intentional choices we make that shape communities in quiet but meaningful ways. Navā/Voice platforms the primary voices behind these lived experiences and recognizes forms of leadership that often remain unseen or undocumented.

The project invites short narratives written by Muslim American women whose actions reflect this spirit of everyday leadership. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, beginning with a curated selection of ten stories, with plans to expand into additional themes as the project grows.

As 

develops, it will continue to grow as a living collection of stories that center Muslim American women as authors of their own experiences. 

Submissions for the first cycle of Navā/Voice will be accepted through June 5, 2026.

Click Here for Details: 
https://cme.asu.edu/Nava

Muslim communities have been part of American life for centuries — among the enslaved Africans brought to these shores, among the immigrants who built industries and neighborhoods, among soldiers, artists, and scholars whose names appear in the historical record but whose full stories rarely do. When those stories go undocumented, stereotypes fill the space that scholarship has not yet occupied.

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Serious scholarly books do something that other interventions cannot: they build an evidentiary foundation. They recover voices that were not heard, complicate narratives that were too simple, and leave a record that researchers, educators, and communities can build on for generations. Good scholarship does not just tell a better story — it makes better storytelling permanently possible.

This is why CME-US is proud to invite nominations for our Inaugural Biennial Book Award, recognizing outstanding scholarly books that advance research on Muslim experiences in America. We are looking for work that takes the full complexity of Muslim life in this country seriously — its diversity of origin, practice, gender, and generation; its tensions and its solidarities; its contributions and its struggles.

Nominations are open through May 15, 2026. If you know of a book that belongs in this conversation, we want to hear from you.

Click Here for Details: 
https://cme.asu.edu/BookAward