Women imams to lead Friday prayers in bid to 'build a bridge' between East and West

A liberal mosque where men and women will be treated as equals is to open in Berlin on 16 June. The mosque has been founded by Seyran Ates, a lawyer and writer with Turkish roots, who is also an imamin (woman imam). She has hired rooms for it at the Protestant Johanniskirche (St John’s church) in the Moabit district of Berlin where she will present her new book, Selam, Frau Imamin (Selam, Ms Imam), in which she describes why she founded the new mosque.

“I hope we will have our own mosque building later. It is important for our mosque to be clearly visible, not least to counter the religious understanding of conservative Islamic associations in Germany,” she told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The mosque will be open to Sunnis, Shia, Alawites and Sufis.

“We want to make all the enlighteners, liberals and great intellectuals from the entire Islamic world that have existed for centuries visible and to build a bridge between the Orient and the Occident,” she said in an interview for religion.ORF.at. “My work with the German Islamic Religious Conference showed me that we liberal Muslims just don’t exist as far as political awareness is concerned. The interpretation of Islam has been monopolised by the official representatives and Muslim associations which I think are reactionary and dangerous”, she underlined.

As a lawyer, Ms Ates, 54, has fought against domestic violence, “honour killings” and forced marriages of Muslim immigrants.

In her interview, she deplored that the West had up to now ignored those Muslim women worldwide who were fighting against women being forced to wear headscarves.


Around 150 Muslims held their Friday prayers in a room attached to St Michael’s Jesuit church in Munich on 19 May, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

Members of the Muslim community in Munich had planned to hold their Friday prayers on the Marienplatz (St Mary’s Square) in the heart of Munich, to draw attention to the fact that more and more mosques and Muslim prayer rooms have reportedly been closed because they did not conform to fire and other regulations. After threats to disturb the prayers, the meeting was cancelled. The rector of St Michael’s, Fr Karl Kern SJ, told KNA that the Jesuits had decided to accommodate the Muslims just for the one occasion but had made it clear that the crucifix on the wall of the room must not be taken down. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany posted on Twitter a photo of the Muslims praying under the crucifix.