BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers

27 Mar 05 - 11:31 AM (#1444841)
Subject: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Some of you may have missed this religious story this week, what with the Christian dominance of the airwaves and print media, but this is the tiny blurb about it from the PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly web site.

"Muslim Woman Presides Over Mixed-Gender Prayer Service

Words of sharp rebuke from around the Arab world after an American Muslim woman led a mixed-gender prayer service. Progressive Muslims in New York last week broke with centuries of tradition when a female Islamic studies professor led a group of men and women in Friday prayers. The group gathered in a church after several mosques refused to participate. An Egyptian newspaper said the event "tarnished Islam in America." Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti called it a violation of God's law. And Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said it would create "millions of bin Ladens."

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27 Mar 05 - 02:36 PM (#1444969)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: RichM

Muammar Qaddafi's statement that her brave action would create "millions of bin Ladens" isn't surprising, coming from the murderer that financed the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988.

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27 Mar 05 - 02:49 PM (#1444977)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Well, it's gonna be hard to keep 'em down on the farm now!

"Toronto, Mar 26 (UNI) Yet another Canadian Muslim woman has breached the walls of tradition to lead the Jummah prayers - hitherto an exclusive male preserve... "

You go girls!

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27 Mar 05 - 02:58 PM (#1444987)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Here is the website of Asra Nomani, the woman who led the prayers.

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27 Mar 05 - 03:01 PM (#1444990)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Allen

But look, these are American Muslims, who among Muslims of the Mid-East have a reputation for being lax. It won't make a difference in the Muslim countries where women have few legal rights. A woman who tries to do that can get stoned to death.
Qadaffi may be a murderer, but he does know what he's talking about. This will do no favours for the women.

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27 Mar 05 - 03:13 PM (#1444999)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

It's a start, and it WILL make a difference--a huge difference, when Muslim women world wide begin to hear of the Muslim feminist movement.

Nothing happens overnight, but revolution always starts out with small acts of resistance like this.

I love the quote at the top of the page of Nomani's website:

"Oh ye who believe! stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, your parents, or your kin!" (Qur'an 4:135)

Catholic women around the world, despite the resistance from the Roman hierarchy and the Roman Catholic hierarchies of their homelands, are doing this as well.

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27 Mar 05 - 03:49 PM (#1445030)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Allen

Yes, but Roman Catholic women don't face death and mutilation for it. Sons have been known to kill their mothers and sisters for bringing disgrace upon the family.

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27 Mar 05 - 03:59 PM (#1445039)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Once Famous

And that is why the Moslem/Arab world is still in the middle ages.

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27 Mar 05 - 04:42 PM (#1445081)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

While it is true that Catholic women under the boot of fundamentalist Catholicism don't face the same repression as their Muslim and Hindu counterparts, they face PLENTY of repression:

1. from priest abuse: sexual, emotional, and physical;

2. repression of their sexual and reproductive rights, especially in third world countries where they are denied even basic medical care;

3. the abandonment of the world's poor by the Vatican under John Paul II and the Catholic Church's complete acquiesence to global capitalism, which has had the most devastating impacts on the world's women and children;

4. the successful linking of international development and aid money to anti-abortion and anti-reproductive rights agendas in the US;

5. the continued repression of the movement for women in the priesthood.

And that's just a couple of ways Catholic women are still among the world's most repressed women.

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27 Mar 05 - 05:24 PM (#1445113)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Allen

Yeah but they are legally protected, despite the difficulties, which I'm not belittling.

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27 Mar 05 - 05:28 PM (#1445115)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Damn lot of good the so called "legal protections" gave to the Catholic Croat women in the rape camps during the last war.

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27 Mar 05 - 05:32 PM (#1445119)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Or the Catholic women across eastern Europe, including Poland, who have LOST legal protections since the so-called "fall of communism".

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27 Mar 05 - 05:50 PM (#1445127)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: McGrath of Harlow

It isn't that long since the idea of women leading prayers or preaching would have been inconceivable in pretty well all Christian denominations, as well as in Judaism. Now the denominations which would see it that way are the odd ones out.

People keep going on as if there was an enormous and unbridgeable gulf between the different branches of the Abrahamic religion. In fact it's more a matter of just a couple of generations difference between cultures. These things don't change overnight, but they do change.

Islam varies almost as much as Christianity or Judaism on these kind of things, even if the balance at this particular time is in a diffeent place.

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27 Mar 05 - 05:59 PM (#1445130)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Allen

That was a WAR. It has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

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27 Mar 05 - 06:15 PM (#1445144)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

And that is why the Moslem/Arab world is still in the middle ages.

yes Martin, as is a great deal of American fundamental Christianity

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27 Mar 05 - 06:18 PM (#1445147)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

War has everything to do with it if you are a woman, Allen, whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew, etc.

Acts of rape in this context not only attack women, they also humiliate the husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons of the victims because they demonstrate the men's inability to protect their women. This humiliation is especially intense in places like the Balkans, the Middle East, and India where the honor/shame complex is so strong and female chastity is central to family and community honor.

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27 Mar 05 - 06:28 PM (#1445154)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Allen

War is beside the point. We were talking normal daily life, not a war in which everything is different. The fact that there were rape camps during a war has nothing to do with the issue that the Catholic womens lot is much better off than their Muslim sisters.

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27 Mar 05 - 06:33 PM (#1445155)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

You can only speak for yourself and what you meant, Allen. You don't speak for me.

I can agree that Catholic women's lot is better (though I wouldn't agree that it's "much" better) than Muslim women's lot in most places during most times. But you don't seem to know and understand much about women and the world beyond your own country, if you think that the differences are all that significant outside Western Europe, Canada (so long as you aren't aboriginal and Catholic), and the US.

But this is more thead drift than I am comfortable with--I began this thread to rejoice and congratulate the Muslim feminist movement for bravely taking this huge step forward for the world's Muslim women.

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27 Mar 05 - 08:00 PM (#1445192)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: greg stephens

Lot of GUESTS around on this thread. I dropped in to see what the locals think. I think I'll be off out again.

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27 Mar 05 - 08:22 PM (#1445202)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Once Famous

Well, goodbye then.

To the Guest who said that modern fundamental Chritianity is in the dark ages, perhaps, but not nearly as far back as the Moslems are.

Chritianity seems to have so many different avenues to take. If one has a problem with one version, they can always go a different route, still believe in the same God and still call themselves Christians.

At least fundamentalist Christianity doesn't mutilate women and functions in American society.

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28 Mar 05 - 04:44 AM (#1445377)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Wolfgang

Lots of these GUESTs are one particular local.

Wolfgang

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28 Mar 05 - 06:11 AM (#1445409)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: RangerSteve

This was written about in the New Jersey Star-Ledger last week, so unfortunately I don't have the article anymore. Anyway, the writer claimed that when Islam was first founded, women were allowed to do this, and a lot of other things. The repression came later. Maybe the repression business was based on someone's interpretation (or misinterpretation)of Mohammed's original ideas.

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28 Mar 05 - 09:10 AM (#1445490)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Donuel

Women heading up Muslim services IS A SACRILEDGE.
It is forbidden by Mohamed in his best seller, the Koran.

What next, women Popes and Priests?

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28 Mar 05 - 01:59 PM (#1445564)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

We can only hope!

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28 Mar 05 - 04:51 PM (#1445609)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,CarolC

Lots of these GUESTs are one particular local.

What makes you say that, Wolfgang?

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28 Mar 05 - 06:52 PM (#1445638)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow

Right now I think we're all GUESTS, because the Mudcat is acting up and only letting us in through the backdoor. But distinguishing with any degree of certainty between one faceless poster and another is in principle very unrelaible. And pretty futile. I just scroll past and wait till they post with a name.

Actually I think that actually finding Koranic backing for banning women from leading prayers is not that easy. I'm sure that Asra Nomani could demonstrate that very effectively.

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29 Mar 05 - 04:38 AM (#1445731)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

Muslims are as sexist as any other religious group. Surprised the feminists haven't bitched about it yet.

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29 Mar 05 - 06:06 PM (#1446316)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah2

Perhaps they fear being called bigots. I know I have been myself.

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29 Mar 05 - 09:03 PM (#1446470)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Bunnahabhain

To the Guest who said that modern fundamental Chritianity is in the dark ages, perhaps, but not nearly as far back as the Moslems are//...
//At least fundamentalist Christianity doesn't mutilate women and functions in American society.

So the people who make it necessary for doctors who carry out abortions to wear body armour are modern, enlightened and moderate? Relative to Al'quaeda, maybe, just.

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29 Mar 05 - 09:11 PM (#1446476)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Once Famous

Bunny baby, who are you talking about? "So the people....." What people do you you refer to? Compared to Al Queda, anything is enlightened and moderate.

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29 Mar 05 - 11:36 PM (#1446563)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: frogprince

This much I feel like I have to say for Martin; as much as Christian fundamentalists can drive me up the wall, the people Bunnahabhain is characterizing are a tiny, nasty, mutant, minority of them.

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30 Mar 05 - 11:11 AM (#1446923)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,Bunnhabhain

I was using a rather extreme example. A very small and nasty element often gets undeserved attention. MG has a tendancy to bring out the worst in me...

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30 Mar 05 - 01:52 PM (#1446984)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST,McGrath of Harlow

Anything is enlightened and moderate? Timothy McVeigh demonstrated that the US can produce home home-grown talent there that is well in the running with Al Qaeda.

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30 Mar 05 - 05:40 PM (#1447225)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: GUEST

"A very small and nasty element often gets undeserved attention."

Not to mention, currently has control of the legislative and executive branches of the US government.

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30 Mar 05 - 05:54 PM (#1447249)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: Once Famous

[bleep] (for antisocial behavior)Bunny, perhaps the drugs you use bring out the worst in you.

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30 Mar 05 - 07:13 PM (#1447345)
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim woman leads mixed gender prayers
From: jaze

Wonder why the men didn't get up and leave if it was so offensive to their religion? This woman teaches at the University I work for. There apparently have been death threats against her for this sacrilege. But still I wonder, didn't the men have a duty to leave? Then she would have been leading just women in prayer, which is apparently ok.

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