Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Inspired by Woman Leading Prayers
By Pamela Taylor for The Indianapolis Star
March 26, 2005
Each Friday, Muslims gather for a congregational service of a sermon and group prayers. One recent Friday, such a service in New York City made news because it was the first public, mixed-gender service led by a Muslim woman. Reaction from the more conservative imams was predictable.
"Blasphemy!" "Disciples of Satan," they cried. A few notable exceptions, such as the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Guma, declared there was nothing wrong with women delivering a sermon and leading prayers so long as congregants agreed. But such voices of sanity were nearly drowned out by those declaring that Amina Wadud and the organizers of the event, Asra Nomani and the Progressive Muslim Union of North America, had tarnished the image of Islam forever.
To those who oppose women in leadership of prayer, I ask who really has tarnished Islam? Those of us who would reassert the equality and dignity in which Islam views women, who would reclaim the political, economic, spiritual and individual parity set up by the Quran? Or those who would distort its teachings to kill thousands of innocent men and women on 9/11, in Bali and in Madrid?
It is a shame that it takes a woman leading men in prayer to unite the Muslim world in horror. As a Muslim and a woman, I say to my brothers and sisters across the world, are these the priorities our prophet would have chosen? And what kind of moral leadership are our scholars providing when they are more concerned with people praying to God than committing heinous crimes in the name of our religion?
http://www.indystar.com/articles/9/232023-5259-021.html
By Pamela Taylor for The Indianapolis Star
March 26, 2005
Each Friday, Muslims gather for a congregational service of a sermon and group prayers. One recent Friday, such a service in New York City made news because it was the first public, mixed-gender service led by a Muslim woman. Reaction from the more conservative imams was predictable.
"Blasphemy!" "Disciples of Satan," they cried. A few notable exceptions, such as the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Guma, declared there was nothing wrong with women delivering a sermon and leading prayers so long as congregants agreed. But such voices of sanity were nearly drowned out by those declaring that Amina Wadud and the organizers of the event, Asra Nomani and the Progressive Muslim Union of North America, had tarnished the image of Islam forever.
To those who oppose women in leadership of prayer, I ask who really has tarnished Islam? Those of us who would reassert the equality and dignity in which Islam views women, who would reclaim the political, economic, spiritual and individual parity set up by the Quran? Or those who would distort its teachings to kill thousands of innocent men and women on 9/11, in Bali and in Madrid?
It is a shame that it takes a woman leading men in prayer to unite the Muslim world in horror. As a Muslim and a woman, I say to my brothers and sisters across the world, are these the priorities our prophet would have chosen? And what kind of moral leadership are our scholars providing when they are more concerned with people praying to God than committing heinous crimes in the name of our religion?
http://www.indystar.com/articles/9/232023-5259-021.html
