Progressive Muslims Re-Examine Tradition and Stimulate Debate

March 28, 2005

Source: Contra Costa Times

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/11248494.htm

On March 28, 2005 the Contra Costa Times reported, "many U.S. Muslims, especially those who have grown up in this country, are asking the same questions. They are successful, professional women who chafe at having to pray in dark, secluded rooms at their local mosques while men enter through the front doors and worship in comfort. They are professors at U.S. universities who object to attempts by religious leaders to enforce strict interpretations of Islam on others, labeling those who don't obey as fake Muslims. They are African-American converts who see similarities between discrimination in the segregationist South and the cold treatment of blacks in some mosques run by immigrants... Such issues have grown in urgency as the nation's Muslim population has risen in recent years, largely through immigration, to between 3 million and 6 million people. A 2001 study of U.S. mosques conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group, portrayed a fractured community."

See also: Islam, Civic, Women, Campus