Berlin Opens First LGBT-friendly Mosque as 'Feminist' Islam Emerges to Fight Extremism
>A female imam from the United States, Ani Zonneveld, called for prayer as the faithful kneeled behind her in rows, all turned in the direction of Mecca.
>Seyran Ates' vision of a liberal mosque where all Muslims can pray together - women and men, Sunni and Shiite, straight and gay - turned into reality Friday as dozens of people came together in Berlin to inaugurate a new house of prayer.
>“The intention is to give liberal Islam a sacred space,” Ates said. “I feel very discriminated by regular mosques where women have to pray in ugly backrooms.”
>"I couldn't be more euphoric, it's a dream come true," Ates, the 54-year-old daughter of Turkish guest workers in Germany, told The Associated Press this week with a smile.
>"There won't be any hate preaching against democracy here," Ates said. Instead, followers can express doubt about their beliefs and approach their religion with sense and reason instead of blind devotion, she said.
>Elham Manea, the female imam who shared in leading the Friday prayers, said mixed worship is an issue of equality.
>“How and when a woman is asked to pray mirrors her social status within her community,” Manea said. “She is asked to pray separately from men, to cover her hair during prayer ... and to stop praying during the days of her menstruation. ... All these restrictions are imposed on her because they mirror the social conviction that a woman is not fully complete and perfect like a man and [that] she without doubt isn’t equal.”
>“I understand that change is hard, because one is used to doing the same thing for centuries, and it will of course be difficult to change it. But still the time for change is now. ... And we’re calling for it respectfully.”
