Religious authorities in Turkey have decided to adjust centuries of tradition and allow women to participate in certain religious services alongside men, the Turkish press said Sunday.
According to a declaration issued by the state-run directorate of religious affairs, women will be able from now on to pray at funerals and attend regular prayers in mosques alongside men, the Hurriyet daily said.
In addition, they will be able to enter religious buildings and read from the Koran, during their menstrual periods, when, until now, women were considered "unclean" by the religious authorities.
The declaration asserted that women and men were "equal and complementary beings" and that there can be no discrimination between the sexes.
Head of the directorate, Mehmet Nuri Ylmaz said in comments published in Hurriyet that the decisions were not binding on the public and that the faithful were free to chose whether to abide by them.
However, he added, they were binding on clerics who were obliged to answer the questions of believers along these lines.
It should be noted that absent from the declaration was the controversial issue of Islamic-style headscarves worn by women, which are banned by the secular establishment in public offices and schools on the grounds that they are symbols of political Islam.
Another issue that remained unanswered was the question of whether Muslim women can marry non-Muslim men. This matter was to be debated in more detail in the future.
The place of women in religious services has for a long time been an issue of hot debate amidst efforts exerted by Ankara to improve its democracy to aid its bid to become a member of the European Union (EU). (Albawaba.com)
