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Una Koalisi Perempuan
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Subject: [perempuan] *the
"great!!" Amina Wadud (2)*
03/26/2005 07:27 PM
Please respond to
perempuan
Mideast Ire At NYC Prayer Service
CAIRO, Egypt, March 19, 2005
A woman and a man sit side by side during an Islamic
prayer lead by Amina Wadud in New York. Some Muslims
in the Middle East called the service an apostasy,
which is punishable by death in Islam. (Photo: AP)
"The woman's body, even if veiled, stirs desire."
Soad Saleh, heads of Islamic department of the women's
college at Al-Azhar University in Egypt
(AP) 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.
*Una, R. Husna Mulya*
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