Wearing Our Perspectives: Clothing in Different Traditions

Each of us was given a length of colored cloth that we tied to the cloths held by the women on either side of us. Thus were we all connected. We passed the linked fabrics through our hands to the left, singing, “From you I receive, and to you I give. Together we share so that all may live.”

The Many Faces of Islam

Three Muslim women represented different experiences of Islam. One is a scholar researching Isma’ili Muslims of the Indian subcontinent; she offered insights into the diversity within both Sunni and Shi’a Islam. Another was born in Kenya of Pakistani ancestry and moved with her family to the U.S., where she has encountered repeated discrimination. The third is a native of Syracuse, an African-American raised as a Buddhist, became Muslim, and married a Muslim from Cambodia.