New Mosque Sparks Discussion on Role of Women in Islam

By Tamara Audi

LOS ANGELES—A women’s-only mosque launched here last week and believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. has sparked a nationwide discussion among Muslims over the role of women in Islam.

Aslam Abdullah, the imam and director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, in Las Vegas, upports the women’s mosque and wants to encourage greater attendance among women at his own mosque, 7 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. But he said feelings in his congregation—which draws between 250 and 500 worshipers for Friday prayers—are mixed. Some object to women leading prayer and giving sermons; others worry if women’s-only worship catches on elsewhere, it could divide communities along gender lines, he said.

Muslim women have long complained of feeling marginalized at traditional mosques, where they often are separated from the main worship space and don’t have much opportunity to engage with the preacher, or imam, after services. Some mosques don’t admit women at all; more conservative scholars believe women’s prayers are best offered at home.

The women’s mosque founders—a comedy writer and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer—said they began to feel unwelcome at their home mosques because of the physical separation of men and women. They said they started the Women’s Mosque of America to invigorate women’s scholarship in Islam and inspire Muslim women to take more active leadership roles in their home mosques.

Hind Makki, a Muslim woman in Chicago who consults with mosques around the country on women’s inclusion, said responses across the Muslim community fall roughly into three basic categories: conservatives who say “the mosque and all-female Friday prayer is a sin”; women and some men who say it’s “awesome and what we’ve been waiting for”; and others who say it “raises critical questions” about women’s experiences inside mosques, and Islamic law.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-mosque-sparks-discussion-on-role-of-women-in-islam-1423156309