"As you break the taboo, you try to bring some new insights to the established tradition. In the eyes of some, when you bring new insights, you are establishing a new tradition," said Abu Zaid, who is Muslim.

Abu Zaid, who spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at VCU on Thursday night, will meet with Wadud on Monday, he said in an interview. More than 200 people attended Abu Zaid's lecture and about 50 more were turned away.

The VCU name on the speaker's lectern was covered with black cloth for the lecture. A VCU spokeswoman said: "We were advised to cover it for security reasons. I'm not able to go into more detail than that." She also said she was not aware of any specific threats.

Plainclothes security officers also were at the lecture. Immediately afterward, VCU security personnel escorted Abu Zaid and his wife to their hotel.

This week, it was announced that Wadud will teach her classes through video conferencing for the remainder of the semester because of concerns for her safety.

Abu Zaid was invited to speak at VCU a year ago after a book about his life, "Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam," was published. Esther Nelson, who teaches religious studies in VCU's School of World Studies, is co-author of the book.

Abu Zaid and his wife, Ebtehal Younes, a professor of 20th-century French civilization at Cairo University, also visited several VCU classes. Younes lives in Cairo part of the year to teach at the university. Because of death threats against her husband, the government assigns a bodyguard to protect her while she is in Egypt.

Abu Zaid said the questions the students asked most often was about Wadud leading the prayer service.

Since leading the March 18 prayer service in New York City, Wadud has been threatened and sharply criticized in many parts of the Islamic world. The service was attended by 80 to 100 people, about half of whom were men. Traditionally, Muslim women do not lead prayers in a mixed-gender service. Women usually pray separately from men.

Had he been in the U.S. at the time, Abu Zaid said he would have attended the prayer service. "I don't find any wrong if I pray behind a woman. If I go to the mosque and look at a woman's buttocks, then I'm not really praying. If I want to look at a woman's buttocks, I should go to a nightclub," he said.

"It's a crime to reduce a woman to a body," Abu Zaid added.

Younes said she also would have attended prayers led by Wadud. Younes added that she usually doesn't go to a mosque to pray. "For me, religion is very private and very personal. I pray at home."

Abu Zaid said a woman leading prayers in mixed company is an important step for American Muslim women. "But it's not a priority for women in the Middle East. They have other priorities. In the Middle East, laws are changing to give women more decisions about their marriage and divorce. Women scholars are waiting to be able to give official opinions like men."

The Quran, Islam's holy book, talks about the equality of men and women. "If all are equal, why does this cause a big stir?" Abu Zaid asked. "Muslims think we are equal in marriage, divorce and custody. But the Quran only addresses males on these issues. They see Dr. Wadud breaking what they think is the divine law.

"There is social space and divine space. Dr. Wadud is trying to bring those two spaces together. As long as you really break the taboo, you try to bring some new insights to the established tradition."

Abu Zaid identifies with Wadud's plight.

Abu Zaid came under fire in Egypt after suggesting that Islam's holy texts should be interpreted in the historical and linguistic context of their time and that new interpretations should account for social change. Fundamentalists were enraged by his controversial claim that the Quran be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally.

He was charged with heresy and forced from Cairo University, his alma mater, where he was a professor. In 1995, the Cairo Court of Appeals ruled that Abu Zaid had abandoned his Muslim faith and therefore was no longer a Muslim. His life was threatened, and the couple fled from Egypt to the Netherlands.

"Looking at the Quran as a historical text is taken as denying the validity of the Quran, which it does not do. What we need in the Muslim world is to construct a scientific approach to the study of religion," Abu Zaid said.

"Religion is taken as a subject to be believed, not to be studied."

reprinted from TIMES-DISPATCH, Saturday, April 2, 2005

Contact Alberta Lindsey at (804) 649-6754 or alindsey@timesdispatch.com