UK has its first (born) Muslim woman lead prayers

The
story is same with Muslims as it is with Jews, Christians, Sikhs,
Buddhists and others. A woman cannot lead the respective prayers. At the
Parliament of world’s religions in Melbourne in 2009, we pushed the
panel of some 12 men representing each faith as to why? The best honest
answer came from the Catholic Bishop, “this is what we are told to do”.
Indeed, the change has to ease into the new norms, it just cannot happen
because some one wants it. As we go forward, we will present the
stories of all faiths with similar stories.

However, the
reformed movements in all the faiths have opened it up. Just this week
in the UK, a Synagogue was severely criticized for letting women touch
the Torah Scrolls and carry it to read in the Temple.

Muslims
have raised hell and have gotten ugly when the first Muslim woman led
prayers were held in New York by Dr. Amina Wadud in 2003 or 2004. They
held disgusting placards outside the place of worship, it was
embarrassing the way a few Muslims reacted to it.

There
is nothing wrong in a woman leading the prayer. Islam is not a negative
religion, it’s positive. No where in Quran or Hadith it’s banned women
from leading the prayers. Just because it was not done before, it does
not mean you cannot do it now. Prophet would
have driven a car if there was one, that does not mean we have to ride
camels.
Men should feel secure, they are not losing their
jobs.

Blaming
the west is not true and it is a conspiracy spun by a
few.  I have been a supporter of this movement since 2003, when Dr.
Amina Wadud
led the first Juma prayers – she was on my Radio show. A lot has been
debated
since, it will take another generation to accept this, but it will be
over a
period of time. It will take another three generations to get this
change to
become a norm in Asia and perhaps a century in Arab lands.  The
Christians, Jews and Hindus need to gloat, on one can have the last
laugh.

Islam is
not a negative and restrictive religion… it started with a command to recite,
learn, read…. and we must.

Mike Ghouse is a Muslim speaker,
thinker and a writer on pluralism, Islam, interfaith and other topics. He
is committed to nurturing pluralistic values embedded in Islam and
building cohesive Socieities and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the
day, all his writings are at www.TheGhouseDiary.com