EDUCATE - INSPIRE - EMPOWER
PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD, author, award winning speaker, poetess, publisher, and Harvard trained researcher, is nationally known for her ability to educate, inspire, and empower live audiences and readers of diverse racial, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds about the growth and development of Islam in America and the Muslim American experience.
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT PRECIOUS
The preeminent Publishers Weekly, “widely recognized as the [publication] industry’s publication of record” describes Precious Rasheeda Muhammad’s chapter, “To Be Young, Gifted, Black, American, Muslim, And Woman,” in the book Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, as one of the “best” and “most absorbing essays” … in an anthology that “opens the door for other writers to explore the important and understudied topic of Muslim American women.”
Precious’ articles, essays, and spoken word have appeared in the award winning book Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faith (Rodale Press), the forthcoming African American National Biography (Oxford University Press), Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Beacon Press), the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Islam in America (Greenwood Press), Azizah magazine, Upscale magazine, The Daily Iowan, the Muslim Journal, on Beliefnet.Com, Minnesota Public Radio, National Public Radio, and the channel formerly know as the WB.
From vibrant audiences at the Smithsonian, the Chicago Historical Society and the Harvard Club of New York to the classrooms of Harvard, Yale and Wellesley, to the museums, historical societies, and seminaries of places such as Portland, Maine, Dallas, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan to locations in between and beyond, Precious skillfully educates her audience. At times, she has shared the stage with internationally respected religious leaders, nationally acclaimed scholars, and respected heads of leading organizations within the Muslim American community such as Imam Zaid Shakir, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, Imam W.D. Mohammed, and Dr. Ingrid Mattson.
BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH HISTORY
Frustrated with the paucity of scholarship on Islam in America, Precious founded and spearheaded the Islam in America conferences at Harvard from 2000 to 2001 to educate the Harvard community and general public about the growth and development of Islam in America and to promote tolerance, fellowship and understanding. The conference gained international recognition and motivated many scholars, practitioners and religious leaders to organize similar events. For more than three years after Precious’ graduation, students at Harvard worked together with various departments, organizations, faculty, and staff at Harvard to carry on the conference thus a further example of Precious’ ability to educate, inspire and empower.
Additionally, while completing her graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School, Precious, who friends and family affectionately call “the history detective,” founded an educational publishing company (Journal of Islam in America Press) dedicated to publishing a broad range of titles on the growth and development of Islam in America and discovered, edited, and introduced The Autobiography of Nicholas Said: A Native of Bornou, Eastern Soudan, Central Africa, a narrative about the Muslim ex-slave, learned African and distinguished Civil War Veteran Nicholas Said.
For her consistent ability to promote tolerance, fellowship, and understanding with regard to Islam in America and the Muslim American experience, the WB television station in Boston, MA did a feature on Precious’ life and awarded her a 2002 Unsung Hero Award on air.
From July to October 2005, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC featured her work on the learned African and distinguished Civil War veteran Nicholas Said as a part of an exhibit titled “Forgotten Roots: African American Muslims in Early America” that launched the “first phase” of a “multi-year initiative to document family and community life among African American Muslims.”
Precious has held diverse positions in public service from a congressional intern on Capitol Hill to a hospital chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, studied in Morocco and France, and has traveled to Egypt, Jordan, and Jerusalem. Precious earned a BA in Religion with honors from The University of Iowa and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She has also studied Arabic at Middlebury College’s renowned summer language institute. She lives with her husband and daughter in Hampton Roads and is taking the time to live in and engage the “real” world before pursuing a Ph.D. Until then, she will have to continue to tell people that invite her to speak to stop calling her “Dr. Muhammad,” which can be quite embarrassing at times, especially when it is announced as such right before she reaches the podium.