PMU Launches Prayer Initiative
(NEW YORK, APRIL 23, 2005) – The Progressive Muslim Union of North America has launched a prayer initiative dedicated to deepening the discussion around female-led prayer in Islam. Though female-led prayer is an important issue in itself, its implications for larger debates concerning spiritual authority, Islamic legal methodology, and theories of social change in the Muslim community requires more than a simple recounting of the event. PMU hopes to provide a forum for this deeper, more intellectually challenging and essential discussion. The Prayer Initiative website features PMU’s theological position on the prayer, engages and debates other theological approaches and positions, gives first-hand accounts of the Wadud prayer, provides resources for those wanting to organize a female-led prayer that include an on-line meet-up site where those who are interested in women leading prayers can link with others, and in the future will provide a live forum for the Muslim community world-wide to discuss this issue in a safe and respectful space.
Tariq Ramadan's Call for an End to Capital Punishment Entirely
The Progressive Muslim Union stands behind Tariq Ramadan’s call for a international moratorium on the application of capital punishment in the Islamic world and further calls for an end to capital punishment entirely. Ramadan, himself, is not calling for a prohibition of capital punishment, nor challenging the legal force of the rulings supporting capital punishment. He is calling for a suspension of the application of these rulings because the necessary conditions for their just implementation are impossible to meet at the present time due to the prevalence of social conditions such as war, poverty, gender inequity, and racism in the Islamic world. We support Ramadan in his action. Furthermore, we contend that there is no possible just implementation of capital punishment under any circumstances. We are dismayed by the rejection of Ramadan’s equivocal call for a moratorium by The Al-Azhar Legal Research Commission who respond that the hudud are not open to debate nor is the one condition for their suspension met (certain circumstances in times of war). The reasoning behind their rejection demonstrates an obsession with legal technicalities over the preservation of Divine Justice which we argue should be the raison d'être of Islamic legal interpretation. To this end, we call for scholars to examine the destructive nature of these rulings through the principle of God’s desire for justice, and to work with the dynamic potential of the Islamic legal tradition for the benefit of the community.
Click through to find a link to Ramadan's call and his response to al-Azhar's statement in which he summarizes their criticism of his call.
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Sharia Law in Canada
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PMU Response to "Women-Friendly Mosque Brochure"
The Progressive Muslim Union welcomes the release of the brochure, "Women Friendly Mosques and Community Centers: Working Together to Reclaim Our Heritage," written and distributed by several conservative North American Muslim organizations.
We are pleased by the realization that justice issues in the Muslim community are always linked to gender issues, and that Muslims from a wide range of backgrounds can work together to achieve gender-just communities.
The PMU feels that Mosques and community centers should adopt and implement these guidelines, however not as a final answer to the alienation and exclusion of women from these institutions, but as a first step towards complete gender equality. The brochure rightly calls for the full participation of women, but unfortunately the guidelines stop short of actually achieving this goal.
Until the right of women to give sermons and lead mixed-gender congregational prayers is recognized, their participation will, of a necessity, be less than complete. In sum, we welcome the release of the brochure, encourage its adoption, and yet simultaneously urge all Muslims to settle for no less than the complete gender equality in our mosques and community centers
Click here for a pdf of the response on PMU letterhead.
PROGRESSIVE MUSLIM UNION CALLS FOR PROTECTION OF IRAQI WOMEN'S RIGHTS
PROGRESSIVE MUSLIM UNION CALLS FOR PROTECTION OF IRAQI WOMEN'S RIGHTS
August 8, Washington, DC -- The Progressive Muslim Union of NorthAmerica (PMU) is dismayed at reports that the new Iraqi constitutionmay severely restrict rights enjoyed by Iraqi women for many decadesand impose a draconian version of various forms of Islamic and otherreligious law on "family" issues. These new restrictions reportedlycould involve serious derogations of the rights to marry freely, toequity in divorce, inheritance and custody proceedings, and even tothe weight accorded to legal testimony by male and female witnesses.Many of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq warned strongly that theUnited States would in all likelihood create a power-vacuum into whichfundamentalists would rush. Now a Sunni-dominated insurgency iscreating a dangerous fusion of nationalism and fundamentalism andcreating a new training ground for terrorists. Meanwhile, theShiite-dominated parliament is apparently considering a fundamentalistconstitution that restricts the rights of women. As a result of theoccupation, forms of religious extremism are starting to characterizeboth the insurgency and the government in the new Iraq. While PMU isnot asserting moral equivalency between all expressions offundamentalism and religious extremism, both of these trends aredisturbing and dangerous. PMU calls upon the Iraqi constitutionaldrafting committee and the Iraqi parliament not to adopt anyconstitution or other governing document that in any way restricts orinhibits the full and equal rights of Iraqi women, or that underminesthe secular character of the Iraqi state, and urges instead theadoption of a governing structure that ensures equal rights for alland a strict neutrality on all religious matters by the state.
PMU Denounces Exclusion, Restriction of Muslim Women Performers
PMU Denounces Exclusion, Restriction of Muslim Women Performers
New York City, August 11 -- The Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMU) condemns the latest instances of a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of excluding Muslim women musical artists in some Muslim events in North America. The upcoming "Muslim Fest" scheduled for August 13 at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, and the "Entertainment Session" at the Annual Convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), scheduled for September 5 in Chicago, Illinois, are only the most recent North American Muslim gatherings or events to adopt a policy of excluding or restricting Muslim women performers, forbidding them from singing in front of mixed audiences, requiring that they wear hijab if reciting poetry, or that they refrain from motions that might be mistaken for dancing, etc. We reject the fundamentalist argument that Islam considers a woman's voice to be part of her "awra" (the part of a person that should supposedly be "covered"), as the Qur'an and hadith have many examples of women expressing themselves in public. Moreover, PMU holds that no event or organization which places these restrictions on women's performances can be considered equitable, fair to women, or in-line with the traditional and mainstream interpretations of the faith. Misguided solidarity with extremists who demand the exclusion of women performers, or serious restrictions on their creativity, is not an argument for this kind of gender inequity and repression. PMU calls on all major Muslim organizations, events and gatherings in North America to reject demands for the restriction of women performers, and to embrace the principal of gender equality and fairness which are part of the ethical imperatives central to Islam.
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The PMU strongly condemns sectarian violence
The PMU strongly condemns sectarian violence such as the bombing of the Al-Askari mosque and attacks upon Shi’ite, Ismaili, or Ahmedi communities in Pakistan. While we may disagree about certain tenets of Islam, there can be no doubt that the proper response is to leave these differences to Allah. It says in the Qur’an, (32:25) “Verily, it is God alone who will decide between people on Resurrection Day with regard to all on which they were wont to differ.” In no case can violence against people of differing beliefs be justified, simply on the basis of their belief.
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