Aisha Sultan
Fellow, Us@250
A Chapter of: Miles to Go: Stories of Us at 250
Making an Impact
These St. Louis Muslim women are changing the region and beyond.
Editor鈥檚 note: This essay was originally published in听迟丑别 听on May 29, 2025. The reprint below carries approved copyright (or 漏) (2025), .
As Dr. Ghazala Hayat watched the news coverage of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, she thought about her closest Jewish friends.
Hayat, a professor of neuromuscular diseases at St. Louis University School of Medicine, called Rabbi Susan Talve, the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, that evening. Her call went to voicemail, so she sent a text: Thinking about you and praying for you.
They spoke a few days later. Hayat expressed her sorrow and asked if any of Talve鈥檚 family or friends had been directly affected.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all just one person removed,鈥 Talve, 72, said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so sad,鈥 Hayat, 70, said. 鈥淲hen people are hurt, they can do something so inhumane.鈥
鈥淣o, Ghazala,鈥 Talve responded. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no justification.鈥
Hayat was taken aback by the implication that she had tried to justify the attack, which was not her intent. She agreed with Talve and said she understood. She knew Talve was hurting.
Hayat, a trailblazing figure in the St. Louis Muslim community, has been at the forefront of building interfaith relationships and speaking on behalf of the area鈥檚 growing Muslim population. The next year and a half of the ongoing war would test relationships Hayat has cultivated for more than two decades.
She and Talve had started the local chapter of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom together 20 years ago. She has volunteered on Christmas Day, at an event known as the Muslim-Jewish Day of Service. She has initiated and hosted difficult conversations about the Middle East conflict. She even traveled to Israel and the West Bank as part of an interfaith group of Christians, Muslims, Jews and Bahais.
Hayat is one of several Muslim women in St. Louis breaking barriers within her own community while facing challenges from the outside. Here are four women, native born and immigrants, who have relied on building alliances to create change: Jaime Dodd, a longtime Montessori school leader, is constructing an Islamic-based Montessori curriculum, along with teacher training and an accreditation program. Dr. Maimuna Baig launched two clinics serving uninsured patients in St. Charles County and west St. Louis County. Lubabah Abdullah, an attorney raised in St. Louis, has led nonprofit and advocacy groups across the country, with a private practice in Houston. She is focusing on building legal knowledge and resources for women.
Their efforts 鈥 spanning educational, medical, civic, legal and nonprofit sectors 鈥 are shaping the region鈥檚 future, institutions and personal relationships in ways that push boundaries and have created a Muslim community and culture unlike many places in America.
Over the past year and a half, Hayat’s legacy of interfaith work is being tested like never before
St. Louis roots
Among the earliest Muslims in America arrived as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as early as the 15th century. An estimated 10 to 30 percent of enslaved Africans brought by Europeans were Muslim. Hundreds of years later, Hayat, born in Pakistan, arrived as part of another large wave of Muslim immigrants who arrived in America in the 1970s and 鈥80s because of easier immigration policies for certain skilled groups. She arrived in Virginia in 1980 with her medical degree. She completed a residency in neurology and moved to St. Louis in 1986. Subsequent waves of immigrants 鈥 from the Bosnians in the 1990s to the more recent Syrian and Afghani refugees 鈥 have led to an exceptionally diverse Muslim population estimated by the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis to be around 100,000 in the region.
The history of pioneering American Muslim women has deep roots in St. Louis.
Former Representative Yaphett El-Amin became the first Muslim American woman elected to serve in a state legislature after winning 56% of the vote in St. Louis, Missouri鈥檚 57th District in 2002. Jamilah Nasheed won back-to-back state house elections beginning in 2006. She then served as a state senator from District 5 from 2013 until she was term-limited in 2020.
Contrary to stereotypes of oppression and subservience, Muslim American women report higher support of feminism than several other American faith groups. They are more likely than white Evangelical or Protestant Christians to have favorable views of feminism 鈥 on par with American Catholics, according to research from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
However, in America, most mosques and Islamic organization boardrooms have been dominated by men. That鈥檚 been slowly changing. Several of the largest Muslim groups, such as the Islamic Society of North America and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, have had women leaders at the helm.
One of the earliest ground-breaking voices came from St. Louis.
Leading through crisis
Members on the governing board of the Islamic Foundation in St. Louis asked Hayat to run for a board election in the mid 1990s after she had served on various committees for years. At first, she declined. She didn鈥檛 want to get involved in the politics of running a mosque.
But, as the mother of two young children, she decided she wanted to play a role in how their generation would perceive and practice their faith. She had grown up in Pakistan with a father who worked as an architect for the military, so she had changed schools 13 times by 10th grade. Her mother was an outspoken progressive who pushed her daughters and son equally to succeed and serve.
Hayat won the election and joined the board in 1995. She became vice chair in 2000. That year the chair of the board was planning to be out of town during Eid ul Fitr, the festival after the end of Ramadan, when the entire community gathers to pray and celebrate. Typically, the chair of the board welcomes thousands of congregants to the congregational prayer on this religious holiday.
The prospect of Hayat delivering the welcome in the absence of the chair kicked off a firestorm. Her critics questioned how a woman would stand in front of so many men to speak before prayer. The imam at the time tried to strike a compromise by saying she would stand in the middle of the prayer hall in the space separating the men and women.
鈥淭he community was up in arms,鈥 Hayat said. 鈥淓ventually, we didn鈥檛 do it.鈥 She figured it wasn鈥檛 worth the strife. There was no welcome address from the board that year. People would tell her she was 鈥渙utspoken,鈥 and they didn鈥檛 mean it as a compliment, she remembers.
But she had more supporters than detractors. The next year, she was elected chair of the board. She was among the first women in America to lead a mosque.
A few months later, hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon, in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. Hayat was drinking a cup of coffee in the hospital lounge when the news came on television.
She barely had a moment to register her shock.
The school at the Islamic Foundation started getting threatening phone calls and wanted to close down temporarily. She called law enforcement and told the school to close. She contacted the rest of the board and said they needed to put out a statement immediately condemning the attacks. They agreed, so she wrote it and sent it out.
By the afternoon, all the local television new crews showed up at her clinic wanting her to comment on camera.
鈥淲hen something tragic happens in your country, you grieve over that,鈥 she said. 鈥淢uslims here did not get that time.鈥 She had to immediately defend her faith and try to protect the community she was entrusted to lead.
After work, she went to hours-long emergency meetings at the mosque. She wondered how her own children were dealing with the aftermath at home. Law enforcement officials showed up to protect the mosque. In the following days, Hayat, who became the public face for the community, began receiving threatening calls at home.
Two days later, she received a call from the Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis. They wanted to hold an interfaith prayer vigil.
鈥淲e want to stand with Muslims and tell the world this is not Islam,鈥 she remembers them saying to her. They met in a church and publicly stood with leaders from the Muslim community.
Talve was by her side.
That Friday, when Muslims had their congregation prayers at the mosque, hundreds of St. Louisans showed up in solidarity with the worshippers.
Members from the interfaith group, whom Hayat had just met months earlier, offered to stay to protect the mosque and community.
That moment changed the way Hayat thought about the power of interfaith relationships forever.
From the political to the personal
During the years that Hayat pushed to build those relationships, Jaime Dodd lived with the personal fallout of religious differences. Dodd, 63, grew up in Troy, Missouri, with a Jewish father and Christian mother. She and her siblings were raised Jewish, and the family drove 50 miles every week to attend Temple Israel on Ladue Road.
When she was a young girl, she considered becoming a rabbi. She taught herself some Hebrew, but her aspirations were dismissed as unserious.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 feel connected to Judaism,鈥 she said. As she made her way through marriage, divorce, motherhood and a long road of higher education, she found her purpose in the Montessori way of education, a child-driven approach to learning. She was working as an administrator for a school in west St. Louis County and living in the far western suburb of Lake Saint Louis when she met Drs. Sajjad and Maimuna Baig. The physicians lived near her and had a daughter who attended the same private school as Dodd鈥檚 daughter.
Their daughters became friends. When Dodd鈥檚 daughter began studying different religions in college, Dodd would read her papers.
鈥淚 was very ignorant about Islam for most of my life,鈥 she said. She began reading books on Islam on her own. The faith resonated deeply with her.
She reached out to Dr. Maimuna Baig and asked if she would take her to the mosque. Ten years ago, Dodd converted at age 52.
She didn鈥檛 tell her family for years. As a lifelong educator, she became more interested in how Islamic education was taught in America. In 2016, she met Marah Zabibi, the director of Al Salam Day School鈥檚 Early Childhood Center, at a friend鈥檚 house. When Dodd mentioned that she was the director for one of the largest Montessori school systems in the state, Zabibi felt a joyful connection.
She asked if Dodd could help transform the early childhood center into a Montessori one.
鈥淲ithout hesitation, she said yes,鈥 Zabibi said. Dodd wrote a proposal for the school board and donated her time to help the teachers become certified. She saw an opportunity for Islamic schools around the country to integrate the Montessori model. She began writing a curriculum rooted in Islamic values of respect, integrity, perseverance and integrity.
She helped found the American Islamic Montessori Association, which she hopes will become an accrediting body for the schools.
While her work to transform Islamic education in America was flourishing, her relationship with one of her conservative Jewish siblings grew more distant.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a real flashpoint in my nuclear family,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e never talk about it.鈥
Talking about hard things
When Hayat, Talve and a group of Muslim and Jewish women first began their small group conversations as part of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, the discussions focused on lessons from the Quran and Torah, their respective religious texts.
Hayat started another interfaith dialogue group with Batya Abramson-Goldstein, past executive director St. Louis Jewish Community Relations Council. She said they had to talk about the hard things, too.
鈥淚 know it鈥檚 off limits, but let鈥檚 talk about Palestine,鈥 she said. It was during a previous period of heightened tension in the Middle East, and Abramson-Goldstein was nervous.
鈥淚t was not something we had done before,鈥 she said. They set some ground rules. The conversation was difficult, with moments of great tension. Hayat asked how the Jewish community taught its young people about how Israel was created. Do they ever learn about the Nakba, the forced displacement and exile of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
Neither expected to change anyone鈥檚 mind or find a solution to a 77-year-long geopolitical conflict. But, it gave them a better understanding of where the other was coming from. Abramson-Goldstein said it was the foundation of years of dialogue that allowed them to broach such difficult topics. She knows the recent war has changed things.
鈥淚n all my years, there has never been as fraught a period as the current one,鈥 she said.
That tension began rising immediately. In 2023, the annual gala for the Interfaith Partnership had been scheduled for two weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. It was the Muslim community鈥檚 turn to host.
Within their respective communities, people wondered: Was it even appropriate to gather like this during this time of escalating violence and destruction? Would people show up? Should they cancel?
The theme of the gala, 鈥淲e stand together 鈥 always,鈥 was going to be tested.
Hayat began speaking out at dinners and private gatherings, imploring the Muslim community to buy tickets and show up. She had said for years that if she criticized the leadership of Muslim countries abroad, it did not mean she was against Islam. Similarly, if she criticized the actions of Israel, it did not mean she was against Jewish people or the faith.
鈥淚 called every possible person that I could,鈥 she said. The night of the dinner, the vibe felt tense 鈥 different from previous years. Members of the Muslim and Jewish community both showed up.
The pain was palpable from all sides. Then, the speeches started in which faith leaders thanked their Muslim hosts and acknowledged their decades of friendship. A Turkish group recited from the Quran. People started to relax.
By the time dinner was served, people were talking and laughing again.
Focus on hospitals and schools
Dr. Maimuna Baig, 71, shares Hayat鈥檚 commitment to working with various faith communities, which is precisely what has enabled her to launch and sustain two Volunteers in Medicine clinics in the St. Louis area. More than 25 years ago, she noticed patients in her private practice would stop coming if they lost their insurance coverage after a job loss.
Determined to do something about it, she asked the president of St. Joseph Hospital in Lake Saint Louis to help her start a volunteer-run clinic that would offer free services to uninsured patients. They have operated on donations and a volunteer staff on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 25 years. In 2011, she persuaded the Muslim community to financially support opening a second clinic in West County. It is staffed by volunteers from across faith backgrounds.
Even though she鈥檚 the medical director and co-founder, Baig is quick to credit others for the clinics鈥 successes.
鈥淭hese volunteers have given their days and nights,鈥 she said. One of the nurse volunteers, Cheryl Moellenhoff, worked with Baig in the hospital for 20-plus years before joining her at the clinic. She watches how Baig asks patients about their home and personal lives and how that impacts their health. She鈥檚 made sure her patients have access to dental care, lab work, follow-up care with specialists. She and the staff will leave brochures about the clinic at local food pantries and apply for grants to keep funding for the space and supplies.
Patients who come in for a simple problem have been diagnosed with underlying cancers, and she鈥檚 made sure they receive treatment for it.
鈥淒r. Baig sets the tone and the example for other doctors,鈥 Moellenhoff said. And when she hears a former colleague may be retiring soon, she approaches them directly about volunteering at one of the clinics.
Sharon Pivin, a retired receptionist who has volunteered at the clinic, said that Baig has spent her life wanting to care for people who could not afford to see a doctor.
鈥淚 think that鈥檚 coming from her faith,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 her foundation.鈥
What does legacy look like?
Lubabah Abdullah, 44, grew up in St. Louis as the Sudanese-American daughter of immigrants. Her father served as the imam in St. Louis and the president of the largest national Islamic organization. She graduated from Parkway West High School when there were just a handful of Black students there, and she was one of two Muslim girls who wore hijab in her grade.
Abdullah graduated from the University of Missouri and earned a scholarship to law school. She鈥檚 served in a variety of leadership roles in nonprofits in the Midwest and in Texas. It made her realize how unique her experience in St. Louis was. She grew up attending Sunday school at the mosque with Hayat鈥檚 daughter.
鈥淲ith Ghazala as an example, it was normal for me that women were involved in the mosque, worshipping in the mosque and running the mosque,鈥 she said. That hasn鈥檛 been the case in other cities, even those much larger than St. Louis, she said. Numerous women have served on the mosque鈥檚 governing board in St. Louis. She recalls her father hosting Islamic studies groups specifically for women.
She鈥檚 also seen how difficult it鈥檚 been to maintain work in interfaith spaces over the past two years. When a Quaker member resigned from the board of an interfaith organization in Houston after being criticized for his support for Palestine and concern for Palestinians, she resigned, as well.
Hayat has run up against those limits, as well. Earlier this year, she wrote a letter on behalf of the Islamic Foundation calling out comments made by a prominent St. Louis Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham on his Facebook that there are no 鈥渋nnocent civilians鈥 in Gaza. He liked a post comparing Palestinians to animals. Not a single mainstream Jewish organization she had worked with for decades denounced his remarks; only the Progressive Jews of St. Louis called out the dehumanizing comments.
The silence stung.
But she refused to close the door on conversation or withdraw into spaces that felt more comfortable and safe. During Ramadan, Karen Aroesty, the former regional director of the Anti Defamation League in St. Louis, hosted Hayat and another longtime member of their sisterhood group to her home for regularly monthly conversations. She knows things have changed, including her views, which have been influenced by years of conversation with these Muslim women.
鈥淚n the end, when it comes to talking to Ghazala, nobody has to win an argument,鈥 she said. 鈥淲hen it gets really, really hard, she never walked away. We kept talking.鈥
Even the closest relationships have felt the most tested.
Talve reached out to Hayat last month to ask for advice about resettling a refugee family in St. Louis. After Talve鈥檚 adult daughter died from an illness nearly eight years ago, she had pulled back from the interfaith sisterhood group she and Hayat had started.
During this call, she asked if she could rejoin.
Of course, Hayat said.
She鈥檚 been waiting for her friend to come back.
Miles to Go: Stories of Us at 250
- Foreword: America, A Work in Progress
- The Semiquin
- The Afterlife of Amache
- Dispatch: Denver, Colorado
- Marco鈥檚 Journey
- Making an Impact
- Dispatch: Chicago, Illinois
- If You Build It, Will They Come?
- Echoes of the Past
- More than Neighbors
- Dispatch: Washington, DC
- The 鈥淣ew Georgia鈥
- Hurricane Katrina鈥檚 Lessons
- Dispatch: New Orleans, Louisiana