Background
Sharifa Alkhateeb was born on June 6, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was Yemeni and her mother was from the Czechoslovakian Republic.
Sharifa Alkhateeb was born on June 6, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was Yemeni and her mother was from the Czechoslovakian Republic.
University of Pennsylvania. Norwich University.
She was involved in feminist causes, domestic violence prevention, as well as interfaith and educational organizations. After finishing high school, Alkhateeb continued her education, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. After completion of her undergraduate degree, she earned her Master"s in Comparative Religion from Norwich University, in Northfield, Vermont and in 1977 edited a translation of the Quran published by Marmaduke Pickthall.
In 1988, the couple returned to the United States, locating in northern Virginia, and Alkhateeb worked as a diversity consultant with the Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax, Virginia, producing a television program called "Middle Eastern Parenting", which aired from 1993 to 1997.
In the early 1990s, she became managing editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS) and she co-wrote the Arab World Notebook, a social studies text used throughout the public school system in the United States. The resulting survey, was the first nationwide inquiry on domestic violence within the community.
After the attacks of 9/11, Alkhateeb coordinated efforts of an "interfaith consortium of synagogues, churches and mosques to facilitate dialogues and understanding". One month later, on October 21, 2004 she died due to cancer of the pancreas, at her home in Ashburn, Virginia.
Since her death, several efforts continue to honor her legacy.
Among these are the Peaceful Families Project, the Sharifa Alkhateeb Community Service Award given annually by the MAS Freedom Foundation, and the Sharifa Alkhateeb Memorial Scholarship of Fairfax County Public Schools.
During her time at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the feminist movement of the 1960s, never feeling that there was a conflict between her religious convictions and feminism.