Muslim Women Debate Gender Segregation In Mosques

March 12, 2010

Author: Staff Writer

Source: NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124623737

Recently a group of Muslim women in Washington, D.C. sought to protest what they considered to be an injustice — being confined to a separate prayer space from their male counterparts. The issue of gender segregation is one that many Muslims are talking about and to get some perspective host Michel Martin speaks with Asra Nomani who participated in the protests and wrote about them for The Daily Beast, and Asha Abdi, a student studying sociology at San Jose State University in California.

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Im Michel Martin.

Coming up, we hear from you, our listeners in backtalk, thats just ahead.

But first, its time for our weekly Faith Matters conversation, where we talk about matters of faith and spirituality. Last weekend, a group of Muslim women filed into the Islamic Center of Washington, thats a prominent mosque located here in the Washington, D.C. area. And they positioned themselves for prayer in the main sanctuary where the men typically gather rather than going to a separate section behind a wooden partition.