Liberal mosque in Berlin offers women and men will pray together, and women will be able to lead the prayer and preach. By making this possible, the inspirer of such mosque has initiated a sort of reform comparable to changes underwent by the Christian and Jewish faiths. Religion must unite people – it’s the only rule.
Guests from all over Europe and the United States came to Berlin for the mosque’s opening. This idea has been important for a long time, but many do not trust them to prioritise it.
The traditional mosque associations in Germany still do not take measures against the radicalisation of community members. According to Seyran Ates, a feminist, lawyer, Sunni Muslim and imam-in-training:
“We have to do something about the radical followers. If we remain silent, nothing changes. But that is not easy. It took eight years to make the idea of a liberal mosque a reality. We first had to find people who had the courage to do it,”
she explains the importance of liberal mosque.
Sunni or Shia, Alawite or Sufi — all and every Islam believer is welcomed in the mosque, which was named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Ibn Rushd, the 12th-century Islamic scholar.
The liberal mosque’s founders noted they had not received any threats or insults, but that they fully expected not everyone would be happy. Of course, everyone has to “keep their eyes open” because no one can see into the future.
