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| N.Y. Prayer Service Irks Mideast Muslims |
| 2005-03-19 |
| 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. pretty brave thing to do, considering the ROP's penchant for blowing stuff up. Three mosques had refused to hold the service, and an art gallery backed out after receiving a bomb threat. see? Organizers said the service was intended to draw attention to the inequality faced by Muslim women. only one of a long list of problems with the ROP. 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." "deranged." heh. do they have mirrors in that part of the world? A female Islamic law professor condemned the act as apostasy, explaining that a woman's body "stirs desire" in men. and, as everyone knows, desire detracts from one's ability to seethe. Some suggested the event was a U.S. conspiracy to mold traditional Islam into a secular American religion. Jewish conspiracy, no doubt. 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." yep. women are simply sexual partners. well, women and goats. But in the conservative Middle East, Wadud's prayer service was frowned upon. oh? do tell. 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." heck. that community wuz corrupted waaaaaay long before she decided to preach, bud. 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. as is virtually every other act of independent thought. "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." I've seen some of these women. trust me. it doesn't. have you seen what this preacher chick looks like? let me put it this way: if she's one of the 72 virgins, don't bother killing yourself, ok? Saleh also suggested the prayer service was a ploy to weaken Islam. yup. freedom of thought IS 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." by killing the apostates. by the hand of his servant, no doubt. it's in the planning stages now. 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. and they're planning on separating those heads as we speak. |
| Posted by:PlanetDan |
| #7 Crazyfool Good question. Some parts of the Islamic world (jeddah in Soddy Arabia; Kanduhar in Afghanistan) have visible homosexual partnerships. Other parts of the Islamic world have an underground homosexual society (Egypt has such a society). Your guess is probably as good as anyone else's here. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-03-19 9:40:09 PM |
| #6 mhw - except that doesn't Arabs have one of the highest occurances of homosexuality around? (In spite of the Koran...). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-03-19 8:17:43 PM |
| #5 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. If I remember correctly, isn't this a "tradition" that dates back to the Iranian revolution of the 1970s, and has no other antecendent? |
| Posted by: Scott 2005-03-19 7:45:55 PM |
| #4 The Islamic prayer requires prostration in which the forehead is on the ground. Most people can't do this without putting their behind up. If you assume that this prostration is required and you assume that you want the worship to be free of carnal thoughts, you have a fairly strong case against mixed gender worship. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-03-19 7:37:00 PM |
| #3 The way that Muslims are always going on about how women's bodies stir uncontrollable desire in men is both pathetic and ridiculous. In the 80s I got the same thing as a woman minister in church - and I assure you my dress and behavior was modest. Cop out on the guys' part. |
| Posted by: anon MDiv 2005-03-19 7:13:07 PM |
| #2 I heard a Moslem woman rant about a lot of these "opinions" that have no, zero, foundation in the Koran. And, she said, whenever you point this out you are told to "shut up, women don't know these things, only men know this." Kind of a neat catch-22 there. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-03-19 6:55:19 PM |
| #1 The way that Muslims are always going on about how women's bodies stir uncontrollable desire in men is both pathetic and ridiculous. The testosterone level is so low in that part of the world that they can't fight like men, they can only gather the courage to attack women, children, and people who can't fight back. They skulk around and blow up people. The only reason that their birth rate is so high is that their women are forced to submit to their "men" whenever the men want. Even so, the Arabs just can't get it up without some of the highest rates of viagra use in the world. |
| Posted by: Random thoughts 2005-03-19 6:43:29 PM |