Mixed gender prayers slammed
BY JOHAN FERNANDEZ IN NEW YORKISLAMIC leaders have condemned last Friday’s controversial prayers led by a female university professor with a mixed gender congregation. She also delivered the kutbah (sermon).
This is the first time that this has happened here or anywhere else in the world and was roundly condemned by imams during Friday prayers.
Imams criticised the prayer meeting saying that women could not lead a mixed gender prayer session.
The group had wanted to hold the prayers in a downtown Soho gallery but after receiving threats the owners refused to allow the use of their premises.
The 90-minutre service was finally held at the hall of Synod House at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, an Episcopal church on 110th Street, Manhattan.
Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led about 100 people in prayer.
The event – sponsored by the Muslim Women’s Freedom Tour, a grassroots organisation, and MuslimWakeUp.com, a website – has sparked debate and sharp criticism from Muslim leaders.
Asra Nomani, an organiser and founder of the freedom tour, said the event was meant to reclaim Muslim women’s rights.
She released a bill of rights demanding that Muslim women be allowed to be imams, or prayer leaders, and to stand in the front rows of mosque.
Organisers said three New York City mosques refused to host the event.
The assistant imam of the New York Islamic Centre, Muhammad Shamsi Ali Al–Hafiz, said that what the group did was wrong but mosque leaders did not want to be confrontational.
“We don’t want to provoke them and would rather engage in a dialogue. If we took a confrontational stance then they would say that they were right and we are indeed treating women as inferior,” he said.
Shamsi said the group was small and did not have the wide support of the majority of Muslims here.
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