Her Turn to Pray

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Until Wadud stood up last Friday, that space did not include the pulpit. Experts say women have led only other women in prayer--and many Muslims are against change. Opponents flooded Wadud and the organizers with angry calls and e-mail. Outside the cathedral, a dozen protesters held signs that said, MIXED-GENDER PRAYER TODAY, HELLFIRE TOMORROW. One veiled woman voiced an argument common among conservative Muslims everywhere: Restrictions on women are for their protection--and are "signs of respect." Inside the hall, police ejected a man after he burst in, shouting "God save your souls!" The organizers "should be stoned," he said later.

Despite such attacks, Nomani plans more services, including one this week near Boston, as part of her Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, which some critics dismiss as a book junket in religious disguise. But her confrontational approach, not the substance of her arguments, is the problem for some would-be supporters. Such prayer services seem "less about worship and getting closer to God than about making a political statement," says moderate imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, author of What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West.

One of the difficulties of effecting change in Islam is that no clerical hierarchy exists; there is only an assortment of jurists whose authority comes from the willingness of the faithful to accept their decrees. One of the most influential elders in the U.S., Khaled Abou El Fadl, a sheik and a professor of Islamic law at UCLA, told TIME that he sees no reason to keep women from leading. In his view, meritocracy ruled in Muhammad's time, and it should today. "The person who is most knowledgeable should be the one to lead prayer," he says. "Gender is irrelevant." Such words are an answer to the prayers of women like Wadud and Nomani--and a sign that the debate has only just begun. •