Word: islamics
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Pundits have long been asking whether Islam is ready for a reform. The answer is that across the U.S., a quiet tide of Islamic reform is very much under way. In Chicago last year, the Downtown Islamic Center made room for four women on its board after they protested the design of a new mosque that would have given women inadequate space in which to pray. Instead, women got access to the main hall when the new mosque opened in July. In Dearborn, Mich., earlier this year, Imam Mohammed Mardini welcomed Christian women who weren't covering their hair, over...
Over the past year I have found myself on the front lines of the struggle over Islam's future in America. Last November, my mother, niece and I walked through the front door of our hometown mosque in Morgantown, W.Va., and prayed in the main sanctuary. In so doing we defied a policy that women enter through a back door and pray in an isolated balcony. Then, in the spring, my father resigned from the board of the mosque to protest speeches spewed from the pulpit that were hateful to non-Muslims. As a result of our protests, my family...
...front door and pray in the main hall. Since our actions began, more women attend worship services. Last month we won an even bigger victory. A Ph.D. student declared from the pulpit that "one of the most important fundamentals of our religion is to love and be loyal to Islam and the Muslims and to hate and renounce the disbelievers," the "cursed" Jews and Christians. I immediately protested the sermon, as did others. In the past, leaders have looked the other way. This time they called an emergency meeting and did the right thing. They fired the student from...
Those of us pushing for reforms are not seeking to change Islam. We are questioning defective doctrine from an intellectual and theological position, using the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and ijtihad, or critical reasoning, as ideological weapons in the war over how Muslim communities define themselves. Islamic scholar Amina Wadud notes that we are emboldened to take public action to reject the way extremists have defined Islam since 9/11. We are in the midst of jihad li tajdid al-ruh al-Islami, a struggle for the soul of Islam...
...said, "O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even if it may be against yourselves, your parents or your kin." With this philosophy, he built a vibrant, inclusive community and returned to Mecca to claim the city that is today the heart of Islam...