She was described as “the most noticed figure among American Muslim women” in a 2010 New York Times article. At 48, Ingrid Mattson struck me as a mirthful, sassy person, whose eruptive laughs were punctuated with sips from her Diet Coke. Her résumé is impressive. Mattson was the first woman and first convert to Islam to lead the Islamic Society of North America (2006 – 2010) and she is currently the director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary. We had the chance to sit down with Mattson and discuss being Canadian, converting to Islam and how the world’s perception of Muslims dramatically changed after 9/11.

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