Women As Imams
There is a current controversy among Muslims regarding the circumstances in which women may act as imams—that is, lead a congregation in salah (prayer). (Note that there are many types of Islamic religious leaders aside from imams, and Muslim women have featured as theological figures throughout the history of Islam.) Some schools of Islamic thought make exceptions for tarawih (optional Ramadan prayers) or for a congregation consisting only of close relatives.
Historically, certain sects considered it acceptable for a woman to be imam. This was true not just in the Arab heartland of early Islam, but also in China hundreds of years ago. The debate has been reactivated recently, arguing that the spirit of the Koran and the letter of a disputed hadith indicate that women should be able to lead mixed congregations as well as single-sex ones, and that the prohibition of this developed as a result of sexism in the medieval environment and patriarchal interpretations of religious texts, not part of or reflective of true Islam.
Read more about Women As Imams: Precedents, Women-only Congregations, Mixed-gender Congregations
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