BBC: Quest to become 'UK's first female imam'

I know I'm averaging like three posts a day. Shut up. This is what the blog is for.

Quest to become 'UK's first female imam'

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Salma Qureshi, a computer programmer and British Muslim, tells the BBC of her ambition to become one of the UK's first female imams.

Like many young women in their thirties, computer programmer Salma likes shopping, aerobics and yoga. But her personal mission to be a religious leader poses one of the biggest challenges to the Muslim world today.

"I'm quite religious but at the same time I'm quite a liberal person myself," she says.

"What I'm doing at the moment is something new. Until now there hasn't been a female imam - the imams have always been men.

"They never think about females as imams, and what I'm about to do is very challenging."

Passing on Knowledge

Taught by her father, Ms Qureshi had read the Koran by the age of seven. She said that when she was younger, she could not "differentiate what was religion and what was culture," and that she thought Islam imposed "too many restrictions" on women.

"It's only afterwards I realised that this is all cultural - religion doesn't really stop women doing anything," she added.

"In fact women can do anything that they want providing it doesn't go against the religion."

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Navid Akhtar, a commentator on Britain's Muslim community, explained that because the vast majority of the community is very traditional and has a "quite basic" understanding of Islam, it is "very patriarchal, very tribal" and expects women simply to pray at home.

"So the idea that a woman trains to become an imam or wants to play quite a leading role in the running of a mosque would be a real shock," he said. "They would see it as a real challenge to their established power base."

Ms Qureshi said that both her husband and brother had reacted by saying "How can a woman be an imam?" when she had told them of her plans.

But she pointed out that Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, had carried out teaching and prayers, "passing on Islamic knowledge and teaching". "So why can't it be done now?" she added.

She also stressed she felt there was a need for this, "because at the moment we don't have leadership amongst women, there's just male imams".

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"I was really surprised that I had younger girls coming up to me, teenagers and younger girls, and they said to me 'You are actually breaking the ice. There's a gap there between male and female and you're trying to fill that up'."

I think it's great. I think it's a good idea for there to be female imams.

For starters, some muslim women might find it easier to talk and get advice from a female imam. They might also feel more comfortable in all-female mosques.

Yes, I know we live in a modern world where everything is unisex and co-ed, but some people are just more comfortable being around women. I don't mean that they have to never ever come in contact with men, but it's just more comfortable, and I know how they feel.

Will there be an uproar? Almost certainly.

Can it be done here? Probably not.

Is this a good idea? I still stand by it. Yes.

Is it against Islam? No. Women can be imams, but they can only be imams to other women and boys who are not "of age" yet. Otherwise, it's not against the Islamic religion. It may, however, be against the Arabic culture which is what most people take to be Islamic law, but that's a whole nother story for another day.