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N.Y. Prayer Service Irks Mideast Muslims
AP ^ | 3/20/05 | NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD

Posted on 03/20/2005 7:18:37 AM PST by TexKat

CAIRO, Egypt - Muslims in the Middle East on Saturday angrily denounced a mixed-gender Islamic prayer service led by a woman in New York as a violation of their religion.

Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the service on Friday before a congregation of 80 to 100 men and women at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, an Episcopal church.

Three mosques had refused to hold the service, and an art gallery backed out after receiving a bomb threat. Organizers said the service was intended to draw attention to the inequality faced by Muslim women.

The Egyptian newspaper, Al-Messa, reported the service on its front page, with the emphatic headline: "They are tarnishing Islam in America!" It referred to Wadud as "the deranged woman."

A female Islamic law professor condemned the act as apostasy, explaining that a woman's body "stirs desire" in men. Some suggested the event was a U.S. conspiracy to mold traditional Islam into a secular American religion.

Muslims are required to pray five times a day. On Friday, the Muslim holy day, many try to perform their midday prayers at a mosque. A male imam leads the prayer, followed by lines of men and, behind them, women. Most mosques have different halls, or different floors for the women, as well as separate entrances.

Sheik Sayed Tantawi, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar mosque, the leading Sunni Muslim institution, said Islam permits women to lead other women in prayer but not a congregation that includes men.

Many of the women who attended the service in New York were modestly dressed and, in accordance with Islamic tradition, covered their hair with the hijab, or head scarf. Wadud conducted the service primarily in English with verses of the Quran read in Arabic.

"Women were not allowed to (have) input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim," Wadud said after the service. She added that while the Islamic holy book, the Quran, puts men and women on equal footing, men have distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than "as sexual partners."

But in the conservative Middle East, Wadud's prayer service was frowned upon.

In Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik spoke out against it in Friday prayers at a Riyadh mosque.

"Those who defended this issue are violating God's law," he said. "Enemies of Islam are using women's issues to corrupt the community."

Soad Saleh, who heads the Islamic department of the women's college at Al-Azhar University, considered the act an apostasy, which is punishable by death in Islam.

"It is categorically forbidden for women to lead prayers (if they include men worshippers) and intentionally violates the basics of Islam," she said.

She said women should not lead prayers because "the woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desire."

Saleh also suggested the prayer service was a ploy to weaken Islam.

"It's a foreign conspiracy, through secular (Muslim) organizations, to sow seeds of division between Muslims," she said. "But God will protect his religion."

Abdul-Moti Bayoumi, of the Islamic Research Center at Al-Azhar, said Wadud had carried out "a bad and deviant innovation" that contradicted the Prophet Mohammed's sayings and deeds.

Not allowing women to lead mixed gender prayers "is not discrimination between women and men but is to safeguard men from being conflicted and torn by human desire while they are standing behind a woman while she's bowing and kneeling," Bayoumi said.

The prayer service and reactions of those who attended were covered by the two major Arab satellite networks, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

One Web site known for postings by Islamic militants carried photos of women at the service who had failed to cover their heads.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: muslimwomen
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Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, speaks at a news conference in New York Friday, March 18, 2005. Wadud plans to lead a mixed-gender Muslim service Friday at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an Anglican church in Manhattan, New York. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

1 posted on 03/20/2005 7:18:38 AM PST by TexKat
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To: TexKat

"N.Y. Prayer Service Irks Mideast Muslims"

Here's a dime...


2 posted on 03/20/2005 7:22:57 AM PST by Dad2Angels
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: Dog; Straight Vermonter; Howlin; Cindy; SunkenCiv; Happy2BMe

"They are tarnishing Islam in America!" ping.


4 posted on 03/20/2005 7:25:02 AM PST by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: TexKat

If her head winds up in the street, will the Police be able to make the connection this time? Ref: Coptic family asassination.


6 posted on 03/20/2005 7:26:21 AM PST by 26lemoncharlie (Sit nomen Dómini benedíctum,Ex hoc nunc, et usque in sæculum! per ómnia saecula saeculórum)
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To: TexKat
I have the solution. All the Islamics who like the service can attend.

Those Islamics who don't like the service can stay home. DUH!!!

7 posted on 03/20/2005 7:27:04 AM PST by Michael_S
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To: Dad2Angels
There are two ways of looking at Islam. There is theoretical Islam, the Islam of the koran and hadiths, and real Islam, what Muslims believe and practice.
I would say some versions of Christianity, that is, what people who called themselves Christians believed and practiced, back in the middle ages were about as dangerous as the Islamic fascism we see today.
If this woman is changing Islam to a more peaceful and benevolent way of life then kudos to her.
9 posted on 03/20/2005 7:29:02 AM PST by FierceKulak
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To: TexKat

Just wait until they have a non-Muslim or some gay guy leading prayers.

Then we'll see how peaceful they really are.



10 posted on 03/20/2005 7:29:23 AM PST by twas
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To: TexKat

Oh yeah, she really gets me so horny. Um...not.

And y'know, are there any headlines about "Anglicanism being trashed in America" because they're holding a prayer service to a false god on the grounds of an Episcopal church? Um, hello, First Commandment, anybody?

}:-)4


11 posted on 03/20/2005 7:31:04 AM PST by Moose4 (So how long will it take Hunter S. Thompson to figure out he's dead and not on an acid trip?)
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To: TexKat

I wonder if they would have preferred the option that she forsake Islam and lead a Chriatian prayer service because Islam (as practiced today in some countries and sects) has placed women in the category of slaves.

Someone should conduct a poll--women leading Islamic servies vs. women running away from Islam to preserve their live and dignity.


12 posted on 03/20/2005 7:31:16 AM PST by rod1
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To: TexKat

>>She said women should not lead prayers because "the woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desire."<<

Yup. . .that pic has be all a flutter with raging desire (to hurl).


13 posted on 03/20/2005 7:31:50 AM PST by Gunrunner2
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To: TexKat
Alumni bump. Go Rams!

5.56mm

14 posted on 03/20/2005 7:33:15 AM PST by M Kehoe
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To: Dad2Angels
"is not discrimination between women and men but is to safeguard men from being conflicted and torn by human desire while they are standing behind a woman while she's bowing and kneeling," Bayoumi said.

Hehe. From what I've learned of Islamic culture, the men feel the same desires when a man is in front bowing and kneeling.

15 posted on 03/20/2005 7:34:40 AM PST by Thommas (The snout of the camel is in the tent...)
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To: rod1

It seems theses Islamic leaders have sold the populace on the premise that men have no responsibility and it is alwats a woman's fault when something bad happaens.

Calling NOW, calling Hillary, etc.

or are those politicos and so called activists only fair-weather femimistis when it suits their REPUB-bashing liberal agenda. If one looks at the world today and asked where women are treated the worst in terms of equlaity, its the Islamic countries, China and possibly India.


16 posted on 03/20/2005 7:35:25 AM PST by rod1
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To: FierceKulak

While inflection is a difficult thing to ascertain in the written word, I would think it should be obvious to the reader that my sarcasm was aimed at the complainers in the ME, not the woman who took part in the service.


17 posted on 03/20/2005 7:39:28 AM PST by Dad2Angels
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To: TexKat
Fern Holland fought for rights for Iraqi women and those bastards killed her March 9th of last year. She was a good friend and had an undying commitment to helping Iraqi women. I have to commend the women that are willing to put themselves in harms way to do the same.
18 posted on 03/20/2005 7:41:24 AM PST by stm
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To: 26lemoncharlie

The Coptic Murders didn't have anything to do with Islam. One of the murderers was a tenant.


19 posted on 03/20/2005 7:45:15 AM PST by Shooter 2.5 (Vote a Straight Republican Ballot. Rid the country of dems.)
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To: stm
Fern Holland fought for rights for Iraqi women and those bastards killed her March 9th of last year. She was a good friend and had an undying commitment to helping Iraqi women. I have to commend the women that are willing to put themselves in harms way to do the same.

The prayer service and reactions of those who attended were covered by the two major Arab satellite networks, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

One Web site known for postings by Islamic militants carried photos of women at the service who had failed to cover their heads.

And these women will be or are being monitored.

20 posted on 03/20/2005 7:46:18 AM PST by TexKat (Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
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