Woman Leads Friday Prayers in New York City Barbara Ferguson, Arab News —

Arab News, March 19, 2005

WASHINGTON, 19 March 2005 — In a historic first in New York City yesterday, a group of American Muslim activists broke with convention and had a woman lead the Friday prayers, in order to “send women from the back to the front of mosques.” According to the Progressive Muslim Union, which organized the event, Dr. Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, was the first woman to lead public, mixed-gender Friday prayers. She also delivered Friday’s sermon. Dr. Wadud, the author of “Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective,” believes Muslim women should be able to lead in prayers. The Muslim world and the American Muslim community generally believe that women cannot lead mixed-gender prayers. It is only over the centuries, they say, Muslim women have lost their place as intellectual and spiritual leaders. “I have no objection to this salah, even though I disagree with it. It is a matter of opinion, it is not a fixed law that women cannot lead the salah,” Imam Mohamed Al-Hanooti, the grand mufti of Washington metropolitan area, told Arab News. “It is a very minor and irrelevant trend, and should be treated as such.” “Things are changing, so this is not necessarily so unique,” said Dr. Yvonne Haddad, professor of Islam and history at Washington’s Georgetown University. “The National Muslim Student Association of America was started by a very conservative movement, mostly male foreign students. But now for the first time, it has a woman for its president, Hadia Mubarak, who is American born,” said Dr. Haddad. “Muslim kids in America say they want to separate Islam from culture and religion, and that they want to feel comfortable being American and Muslim at the same time, so they’ve been pushing the envelope. Their parents teach them that their religion is their culture. But they want to make a distinction from the culture and the religion.” Imam Shaker El-Sayed, former general secretary of the Muslim American Society said there is an established historic consensus among all Muslim scholars that a woman may lead other women in prayer, but she should not lead men in prayer. “This is not because she is a woman,” he said, “but because of the awkwardness of the position we Muslims take when we prostrate in prayer. These positions would make both women and men uncomfortable when a woman bows down and prostrates in front of men.” “Women may lecture to men,” said Imam El-Sayed, “but she may not lead the prayers and consequently she cannot deliver the sermon, because the sermon is traditionally offered by the imam who leads the prayers.”