Who is Asra

An accomplished author, journalist and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is widely recognized for her insightful commentary and thought-provoking analysis across prominent media platforms, from MSNBC and CNN to Fox News, the Washington Post and BBC, among others.

Born in Bombay, India, in 1965 and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Ms. Nomani embodies a courageous voice of authenticity, reason and integrity.

Arriving in the United States in 1969 without knowing a word of English at the age of four, Ms. Nomani became a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in 1988 at the age of 23, covering the airline industry, airplane crashes, cultural zeitgeist, lobbying, international trade, travel and other areas at the intersection of money, politics and society.

Following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, she reported from Pakistan for Salon magazine, earning an Online Journalists Award for feature reporting.

Asra Nomani & Daniel Pearl

On Jan. 23, 2002, her friend and Wall Street Journal colleague Daniel Pearl left a home she was renting in Karachi, Pakistan, and was kidnapped and later murdered. Her efforts to find Mr. Pearl are captured in the film “A Mighty Heart,” featuring actress Angelina Jolie. The actress Archie Panjabi played Ms. Nomani’s role.

Shaken by the tragedy of her friend’s murder, she authored “Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love,” published by HarperCollins’ HarperOne in 2003, about her study of Buddhism and Hinduism, her search for identity and the existential lessons learned with her friend’s murder. She wrote movingly about finding divine love as a single mother, discovering she was pregnant during the search for Mr. Pearl and returning to America to give birth to her son.

Muslim Feminist

Moving to the opinion pages as a writer to advocate for an Islam of grace in op-eds in the Washington Post, Ms. Nomani wrote, “Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam,” published by HarperOne in 2005, about her journey to to Mecca, Saudi America, and her transformation as an advocate for women’s rights and human rights as a Muslim feminist and reformer. Her family’s struggle to fight for women’s rights at their local mosque in Morgantown was featured in an award-winning PBS documentary, “The Mosque in Morgantown.”

Start of the Pearl Project

In 2007, Ms Nomani founded the Pearl Project, an investigative journalism initiative named for her friend, Mr. Pearl, and she co-led a faculty-student investigation at Georgetown University as a professor in the practice of journalism, uncovering details into Mr. Pearl’s tragic murder. The class published a landmark book into Mr. Pearl’s case, “The Truth Left Behind,” published by the Center for Public Integrity.

As a subject matter expert on issues of terrorism and extremism, Ms. Nomani was a lead trainer in a cultural training courses to military, law enforcement and diplomatic officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and State Department, before their deployments to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the “War on Terror.”

In 2015, as terrorists attacked innocents at the Bataclan music hall in Paris, she appeared on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” to advocate for Muslim reform. She published an award-winning article in Washingtonian magazine, detailing the transformative impact of Mr. Pearl’s murder on her life and her journey of post-traumatic growth.

She leads the Pearl Project today, mentoring young journalists and pioneering important local journalism as an investigative reporter and editor at the Fairfax County Times in Northern Virginia, leading groundbreaking coverage of education and politics.

Ms. Nomani is a registered private investigator.