SHOTLIST
1. Suehyla el-Attar leads call to prayer
2.
Various wide shots of audience
3. Close-up
Amina Wadud delivering service
4. Wide shot from behind Wadud with audience listening
5. Various of audience
6.
Cameraman
7.
Audience listening
8.
Woman chanting
9. Audience listening
10. Wide shot Wadud speaking to press
11. SOUNDBITE (
English): Amina Wadud,
Professor of
Islamic Studies at
Virginia Commonwealth University:
(
Reporters asked what the
Muslim world thinks of her): "
Nobody ever has everybody giving the same opinion so I don't know (what the Muslim world thinks of me) but I also do not use that as the basis of my devotion. I'm concerned with what
Allah thinks of me."
12. Wide shot Wadud speaking to press
13. Reporters listening
14. SOUNDBITE (English):
Ahmed Nassef, Muslimwakeup.com
"This is an event that's taken 1400 years for us to have as Muslims. This is something that's just as important for men as it is for women, because only when men realise the equal space that they need to share with women, in our mosques, in our communities, only then will we realise the true nature of what it means to be Muslim."
15. Exterior of church, police in foreground
16.
Group of police officers
17. SOUNDBITE (English): Protestor who identified himself as Nussrah, an
American Muslim from
New York City:
"This is not
Islam. And all I want to say is she is lucky, because if she's living in an
Islamic state, Islam would require a woman like that to be hanged. She would be stoned, she will be chopped into pieces, because what she is doing is blasphemy. This is the same law in Judaism and Christianism and Islam, no
difference. The penalty for blasphemy is death, and this is what this woman needs, period."
18.
Mid shot of people outside church
STORYLINE
A female professor led Islamic
Friday prayers to a mixed-gender congregation in New York City, despite sharp criticism from
Muslim religious leaders in the
Middle East who complained that it violated centuries of tradition.
Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the two-hour service at Synod
House at the
Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, an
Anglican church in
Manhattan.
About 80 to
100 people attended the service, and the group appeared evenly divided between men and women. Most women wore the traditional
Muslim headscarf and long, flowing robes.
There was a brief outburst from some protesters outside the building at the start of the service, but they were kept from entering by a heavy police presence.
Three
New York mosques had refused to host
the service, organisers said. It was moved to Synod House after a site that had earlier been selected for the service, an art gallery in downtown Manhattan, received a bomb threat.
The call to prayer was led by an American Muslim of
Egyptian descent, Suehyla el-Attar, who spoke in accented
Arabic and didn't wear the traditional headscarf.
Organisers said the service wasn't meant as a protest against Muslim traditions.
"It was always meant as a spiritual worship opportunity, and it's doing so in an equal space for women and men," said Ahmed Nassef, whose group Muslim WakeUp! helped to organize the service.
The sheik of
Cairo's
Al-Azhar mosque, one of the world's top
Islamic institutions, said Islam permits women to lead other women in prayer but not a congregation with men in it.
Abdul-Aziz al-Khayyat, a former minister of religious affairs in
Jordan and a
Muslim cleric, also said it would be forbidden under Islamic doctrine, and that the prayers of men who participated would not count.
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- published: 21 Jul 2015
- views: 4134