Berlin-based Imam Seyran Ates, 55, has had to get used to the hate mail and the death threats.
She hardly cut a popular figure among Germany’s Muslim population before 2017; as a lawyer, she used to represent victims of domestic abuse and other violence perpetrated by her clients’ conservative-Muslim husbands and brothers. Ates has a scar on her neck from where a would-be murderer’s bullet hit her years ago.
Then, last year, the Istanbul-born feminist really painted a bull’s-eye on herself when she started the Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in the German capital. It’s a place of worship where men and women pray in the same space. Burqas and niqabs are strongly discouraged, headscarves are optional, and women often lead in prayer. [Patheos] Read more
