Mosque in Morgantown

About the Project

Working in Pakistan after September 11, 2001, former reporter Wall Street Journal Asra Normani had faced a double shock.  First came a surprise pregnancy and abandonment by the Pakistani man she thought would be her husband, then the murder of her dear friend and colleague Daniel Pearl at the hands of Muslim extremists.  Still reeling and with a son to raise, she returned to her hometown in West Virginia, a small university town of 30,000 nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and discovered the mosque had been taken over by men she saw as extremists. 

The Mosque in Morgantown chronicles what happens when she decides to fight back -- unexpectedly pitting her against the mosque's moderates. She believes intolerance in the mosque is the first step on a potential path to violence, and that Islam cannot afford to handle this problem with half-measures and diplomacy; the stakes require nothing less than a revolution.  As her efforts to spark that revolution escalate to the national stage, many Muslims in the mosque and elsewhere begin to suspect she aims to reshape the religion into something that is no longer Islam.

Through unfolding scenes and intimate interviews, the film frames this local conflict as a means to explore the larger dilemmas facing American Islam.  It tells a story of competing paths to social change, American identity and the nature of religion itself.

The Fledgling Fund Impact

The Fledgling Fund is pleased to provide outreach and audience engagement support for The Mosque in Morgantown. Religion is a sensitive and personal experience and the film's investigation of dialogue around faith and identity provides interesting insights that help uncover the connection between the local, the national, and the global. This film gives audiences an opportunity to examine the complexities of migration, religion, and the effects of war.