A Virginia Commonwealth University professor of Islamic studies will be teaching her classes through video conferencing for the remainder of the semester because of concerns for her safety.

Amina Wadud sparked international controversy recently when she led an Islamic prayer service that was attended by both men and women.

Islamic tradition calls for men and women to pray separately. Many Islamic clerics condemned her participation in the service, which was conducted in New York.

A VCU spokeswoman indicated that the decision to move Wadud out of the classroom came after a security review.

A Richmond professor who enraged some Middle Eastern Muslims by leading a prayer service attended by both men and women is right on target, says an exiled Egyptian Islamic studies scholar.

Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, has succeeded in breaking the taboo of the male-dominated mosque, said Nasr Abu Zaid, who fled his home country in 1995. Abu Zaid now teaches at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

"As you break the taboo, you try to bring some new insights to the established tradition. In the eyes of some, when you bring new insights, you are establishing a new tradition," said Abu Zaid, who is Muslim...

...The VCU name on the speaker's lectern was covered with black cloth for the lecture. A VCU spokeswoman said: "We were advised to cover it for security reasons. I'm not able to go into more detail than that." She also said she was not aware of any specific threats.

Plainclothes security officers also were at the lecture. Immediately afterward, VCU security personnel escorted Abu Zaid and his wife to their hotel...

...Abu Zaid identifies with Wadud's plight.

Abu Zaid came under fire in Egypt after suggesting that Islam's holy texts should be interpreted in the historical and linguistic context of their time and that new interpretations should account for social change. Fundamentalists were enraged by his controversial claim that the Quran be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally.

He was charged with heresy and forced from Cairo University, his alma mater, where he was a professor. In 1995, the Cairo Court of Appeals ruled that Abu Zaid had abandoned his Muslim faith and therefore was no longer a Muslim. His life was threatened, and the couple fled from Egypt to the Netherlands.

"Looking at the Quran as a historical text is taken as denying the validity of the Quran, which it does not do. What we need in the Muslim world is to construct a scientific approach to the study of religion," Abu Zaid said.

"Religion is taken as a subject to be believed, not to be studied."