Woman leads US Muslims to prayer

FULL BBC VERSION


Woman leads US Muslims to prayer

The congregation was evenly split between men and women.

A professor in the US is thought to have become one of the first Muslim women to lead mixed Friday prayers.

More than 100 men and women attended the service and sermon given by Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The location was moved to an Anglican Church building in New York after mosques refused to host the event.

The service has been criticised by a number of Muslim leaders, who say it goes against Islamic doctrine.


It's not proper for [men] to look at the woman whose body is in front of them


"The issue of gender equality is a very important one in Islam, and Muslims have unfortunately used highly restrictive interpretations of history to move backward," Ms Wadud said before the service started.

"With this prayer service we are moving forward. This single act is symbolic of the possibilities within Islam."

Those who attended were said to be evenly divided between men and women. Most women wore the traditional Muslim headscarf and robes.

Some 15 protesters gathered outside the Synod House of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, where the prayers took place. One carried a placard calling for Allah's curse to be upon one of the event's organisers.

"She is tarnishing the whole Islamic faith. If this was an Islamic state, this woman would be hanged," one man, Nussrah, told the Associated Press.

The BBC Middle East correspondent says the controversy has meant Ms Wadud is getting prominent coverage on Arabic television networks.

'Second class'

The service was organised by a group of activists, journalists and scholars who hoped to encourage discussion about the centuries-old tradition of separating men and women during congregational prayer, and reserving the role of prayer leader, or imam, for men.

One organiser, Asra Q Nomani, said they would challenge the "second-class" status of women in Muslim spiritual life.


Mosques reportedly refused to host Amina Wadud

"We are taking actions that no-one else would have dared to think about before," she told The New York Times. "Nobody cared that we didn't have a place in the faith."

However, the sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, one of the world's top Islamic institutions, said Islam did not allow for women to preach to men.

"When she leads men in prayer... it's not proper for them to look at the woman whose body is in front of them," Sayed Tantawi wrote in a column for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.

In New York, Aisha al-Adawiya, head of Women in Islam, said she feared a "backlash".

The prayer service was moved after it was rejected by three mosques and an art gallery venue received a bomb threat, the AP reported.


Al Jazeera version in full


Woman leads controversial US prayer


Saturday 19 March 2005, 12:56 Makka Time, 9:56 GMT

A woman has led a controversial mixed-gender Islamic prayer service, with organisers of the event saying they are "ushering Islam into the 21st century".

Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the service she was leading was "only one aspect of emphasising the belief in the reality that women are equal" under Islam.

"We claim that we have primordial rights ... to acknowledge the reciprocal rights of women and men to attain moral excellence (in Islam)," Wadud said, addressing a congregation of 80 to 100 men and women attending the service at Synod House at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, an Anglican church in Manhattan.

The service drew protests and has stirred controversy internationally because many Muslims say that only men are empowered to lead other men in prayer.

Nasir al-Husaini, Aljazeera's correspondent in New York reported around 90 male and female non-Arab Muslims attended the prayers. Fewer than 10 people protested outside the church, he said.

To break religious traditions, female worshippers lined up in the first rows, saying they had broken what they have called "limitations imposed by extremists against women in the mosques treating their spiritual rights unjustly".

Many of the women in attendance were modestly dressed and, in accordance with Islamic tradition, covered their hair with the hijab, or headscarf. But others shunned the scarf and wore form-fitting jeans or pants.

While women played a pivotal role in spreading Islam during the Prophet Muhammad's time, Wadud said, they were marginalised by men who years later "sat together in their privileged places" to collect the chapters that would become the Quran.

"Women were not allowed to (have) input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim," she said, adding that while the Quran repeatedly puts men and women on an equal footing, men quickly distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than to "please them as sexual partners".


Feminist hype

Dismissing criticism by some that the event was little more than feminist rabble-rousing, Asra Nomani, an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter who is the lead organiser of the prayer ceremony, said it was about drawing attention to the inequality Muslim women worldwide face in all aspects of their lives.

"Today, we are ushering Islam into the 21st century, reclaiming the voice that the Prophet gave us 1400 years ago"

Asra Nomani, an Author

"We will no longer accept the back door or the shadows," Nomani said. "Today, we are ushering Islam into the 21st century, reclaiming the voice that the Prophet gave us 1400 years ago."

She introduced a 10-item list she dubbed An Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Mosque, which included the right to enter through the front door and to be prayer leaders.

For many critics, that message, its manner of delivery and its forum were seen as an affront to mainstream Islam that had reached blasphemous levels.

It is an argument that has also arisen in Christianity and Judaism, where women were until recently barred from being ordained.

Blasphemy

Particularly controversial was Wadud's periodic substitution of the Arabic word for God, Allah, with the pronouns he, she and it, arguing that God's omnipresence defied gender definition.

"This woman is tarnishing the whole Islamic faith," said Mohammed Nussrah, a Brooklyn native whose family originally hails from Algeria. He screamed that Wadud does not speak for pious, mainstream Muslims.



Wadud's actions have drawn
criticism from many Muslims

"All she is doing is twisting the interpretation of Islam to suit her needs. This is blasphemy, pure and simple," said Nussrah, a member of a local Muslim group named the Islamic Thinkers. "If this was an Islamic state, this woman would be hanged."

It was not clear whether Wadud heard their comments or saw the placards they were carrying, one of which read: "Mixed-Gender Prayers Today, Hellfire Tomorrow."

Wadud, describing herself as "a lonely academic" more comfortable writing a book than dealing with the limelight, made it clear she would not accept interviews after the event.

Fierce opposition

Opposition was fierce before the day of the service.

The prayer had been scheduled at an art gallery in downtown Manhattan, but that venue was dropped after a bomb threat was received, said Nomani. Three New York mosques also refused to host the service.

"All she is doing is twisting the interpretation of Islam to suit her needs. This is blasphemy, pure and simple"

Little was orthodox about this Friday prayer - the most important of the week for Muslims.

The call to prayer (adhan) was led by an American Muslim of Egyptian descent, Suehyla el-Attar, who spoke in accented Arabic and did not wear the traditional headscarf.

El-Attar told Aljazeera she had learned the principles of the adhan from her father who used to say the adhan when they lived in Egypt.

Many in attendance said they found the service inspiring.

"This is important. It's time for us to take our place in the mosques," said Nadwa al-Dawari, who moved to the United States from Yemen. "But I didn't like that she referred to God as 'he,' 'she' and 'it.' That's a bit much."

"It's about time," said her friend, Hana Ahary, a Yemeni-American born in the Untied States. "When the Wahhabis or the Sunnis or the Shia men get together, it's seen as normal. But when you have a bunch of women taking a stand, it's like they see us as lesbians."

Multiple interpretations

Organisers said the service was an attempt to stretch traditional interpretations of Islam to give greater voice to women while affording American Muslims a voice that reflects the needs of the current generation.

"This is about unity, about multiple interpretations of faith in a community where our mosques have failed us," said Ahmed Nassef, whose Muslim WakeUp! group helped organise the service.

Most Muslims believe women are
not allowed to lead mixed prayer

That failure, argues Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, is largely a result of a political climate in which Islam has become increasingly suspect.

But even as American Muslims search for new leaders after "the US government has delegitimised the Muslim leadership in America," their efforts are unlikely to win support abroad.

"People in America think they are going to be the vanguards of change," Haddad said. "But for Arab Muslims in the Middle East, American Muslims continue to be viewed on the margins of the faith.".........

This fascinating article continues

Al Jazeera version in full



Well, I say fantastic and about time.

But - this is equally a debate in many christian denominations....

Reactions?

What, if anything, does this mean for Islam's future?