The New York-based union is a response to a crisis in Islam, says co-founder Ahmed Nassef. He says U.S. studies show that only 10 per cent of Muslims have an association with mosques or other Islamic institutions.

And one of the reasons for this, says Nassef, 38, is that many feel alienated from the religious leadership.

"People feel shut out because of a narrow, obscurantist interpretation of Islam. It shuts out a lot of women in an ultra-conservative environment," he says.

"Most people we appeal to have grown up in Canada and the U.S. and accepting people for who they are is normal. Some people will feel homosexuality is a sin, but feel deeply gays should not be discriminated against," says Nassef, a former marketing consultant. "There is room here for multiple views."

The Progressive Muslims Union of North America grew out of Nassef's popular website, muslimwakeup.com, which features provocative columns like ``Sex and the Umma (the Muslim World)'' and ``Hug a Jew,'' where Muslims seek out like-minded Jews for an embrace. Noam Chomsky was a recent catch. The site, which logged 2.8 million hits last month, just launched ``Ramadan Journal,'' a blog about experiences such as what it's like to live with a non-faster and how to get through coffee-withdrawal during the month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, abstaining even from water.

The group calls for critical engagement with Islamic texts and reaction to the conservatism that dominates many Muslim organizations.

"Someone whose sense of being Muslim comes from medieval Persian love poetry is no less a Muslim than someone who prays five times a day," says Omid Safi, 33, a co-founder and editor of the book, Progressive Muslims, which outlines the principles of the movement.

The founders, who have backgrounds ranging from academics to marketing and communications, say they want a ``big-tent'' approach to bring in the widest possible range of views. And they want to provide an alternative to the face of Islam often presented in the media — that of Old World Muslims.

"It is a segment of the community, but not the whole," remarks Nassef.

The new group is bound to alienate conservative thinkers who disapprove of its pro-gay position, its push for women's equality in leadership, and its welcome to all Muslims, not only those who are religiously observant.

Katherine Bullock, of the Islamic Society of North America (Canada) — an organization rooted in orthodoxy — says the arrival of the union has signified a new openness, and is reminiscent of the early years of Islam, with lots of thinking, debating and dialoguing.

"Let's hope they remain open to traditional Islamic thinking," Bullock adds.

Among the issues the progressive union will address is the role of women in the mosque.

Safi, who is an Islamic studies professor at Colgate University, asks: "Should one line up behind male imams forever and ever? It's a question that deserves to be asked."

As head of the Noor Cultural Centre, Roshan Jamal, for one, has taken a big step forward. It's rare for a woman to helm an Islamic organization.

``I've not heard of it anywhere else,'' she says.

As a part of its openness mandate, the centre is challenging long-standing Muslim traditions that separate men and women at prayer.

Yesterday, the Noor Centre, which resides in the former home of the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre on Wynford Dr., began holding regular Friday prayers with men and women praying in two sections, but side by side. This kind of prayer arrangement is believed to be a first in Canada.

``Why not side by side?'' asks Jamal, 59. "This is gender equality. There is nothing in scripture that says you cannot.''

Different interpretations of women's place in prayer halls can be traced to the Hadith, the sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad. One trend that gained popular support in the last century places women at the back of the mosque.

But in her analysis of the Hadith, University of Toronto graduate student Nevin Reda El-Tahry found the majority of trends opposed segregation. Her research was recently published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.

In Toronto, women often pray separately from men in inferior spaces — basements, balconies, small rooms or behind screens. In a few new mosques, men and women share the same floor, though women are at the back of the hall.

While there's no organized uprising of Muslim women demanding their rights in mosques, there are scattered examples of women taking up the progressive mantle and challenging the status quo in the U.S. and Canada.

Journalist Asra Nomani faces expulsion from a Morgantown, W. Va., mosque where, a year ago at Ramadan, she dared to use the front door, not the women's side entrance, and prayed in the main hall, 10 metres behind a row of men.

Nomani had been on the hajj (holy pilgrimage) to Mecca and enjoyed unsegregated access. "There was no men's section, no women's section, no women's hour to circle the Kabbah (Islam's holiest site). It was equal opportunity," she says.

"I asked myself, am I being shallow for caring about the space where I pray?" says Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who returned to her hometown to raise her 2-year-old son.

She called scholars across the U.S. for advice. "Some acknowledged mosques are men's clubs; all affirmed our right to be in the main space without a barrier and that my basic rights were being denied."

In August, after months of angry debate, she won the right to pray on the main floor of the mosque, though the leadership wants her expelled, saying she was disruptive to prayer.

Nomani says many Muslims are afraid to speak out.

"It's fear of challenging traditions that are disguised as religion."

Most mosques in Toronto — the majority of which are converted from other uses — do not provide for women to pray in the same space as men.

There are exceptions, including Toronto and Region Islamic Congregation (TARIC) in North York, where there is no partition in the hall separating men and women, who pray at the rear, and the Islamic Society of North America mosque in Mississauga, where a low railing separates the women's prayer area from the men's.

"It is the nature of prayer that we stand shoulder to shoulder to pray to form a solid bond," said Haroon Salamat, chair of TARIC's board. "I think a lot of men would be upset to have other men standing next to their wives and daughters. There's less distraction."

At the Noor Cultural Centre, which was redesigned with stylized Islamic detailing by the original architect, Raymond Moriyama, Roshan Jamal hopes for a Canadian vision of Islam.

"It will have a Canadian cultural aspect,'' says Jamal.

``Men and women will mingle. I wear Western clothes — to work and at home. Why should I put on different garb when I go to a centre to meet my community?"

And she insists that Noor, which offers lectures, musical events and English language classes, reflects mainstream Islam.

"This is not breakaway,'' Jamal says. ``This is not reform."

Safi, of the Progressive Muslims Union of North America, echoes her sentiments.

He says none of his fellow founders is a ``Muslim Martin Luther,'' intent on separating from the faith.

``I see transformation by remaining in the community and transformation from within,'' says the professor, who sees another Martin Luther — King, that is — as one of his models.

The word noor means light in Arabic. Says Jamal, head of the aptly named Noor Centre:

``In some ways we are coming out of darkness ourselves.

``When Islam came to the world 1,400 years ago, it was a very influential civilization, making advances in science, mathematics, trade, economics. Over recent centuries, people's views became more narrow, compartmentalized.

``Now it's time to go back to enlightenment.''