From ABC News:
As of Friday, Germany has its first explicitly liberal mosque.
Seyran Ates' vision of a liberal mosque where all Muslims can pray together — women and men, Sunni and Shiite, straight and gay — turned into reality Friday as dozens of people came together in Berlin to inaugurate a new house of prayer.
Ates, a well-known women's right activist and lawyer, preached in front of the crowd which filled the mosque. A female imam from the United States, Ani Zonneveld, called for prayer as the faithful kneeled behind her in rows, all turned in the direction of Mecca.
[...]
The mosque is named Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque, combining the names of medieval Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd and German writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe. It is located on a busy shopping street in the immigrant neighborhood of Moabit, which is dotted with Indian and Vietnamese restaurants and Middle Eastern cafes.
If you’re interested in the thinking behind this sort of venture, I would recommend starting with Omid Safi’s Progressive Muslims: Voices on Justice, Gender, and Pluralism.
