Yesterday, New York (You remember New York, right? That's the city where more than 2,500 people were killed in a moment of traditional Islamic Jihad.) hosted a Muslim prayer service in Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an Anglican church in Manhattan. Were the Anglicans pissed off about it? No. Were the Muslims? Well, what do you think?

They weren't upset that it was being held in a Christian house of worship - after all, Jihad means (in addition to murdering and enslaving) overrunning non-Muslim houses of worship as a way of furthering their cause. No, the anger was directed at Professor Amina Wadud, the female who led the service.

Muslim leaders in the Middle East sharply criticized a female professor who led an Islamic prayer service before a mixed congregation of men and women in New York and complained that it violated centuries of tradition.

"Women were not allowed to (have) input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim," she said, adding that while the Quran puts men and women on equal footing, men have distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than "as sexual partners."

Dismissing criticism by some that the event was little more than feminist rabble-rousing, Asra Q. Nomani, an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter who helped organize the prayer, said it was intended to draw attention to the inequality faced by Muslim women.

"We will no longer accept the back door or the shadows," Nomani said. "Today, we are ushering Islam into the 21st century, reclaiming the voice that the prophet gave us 1,400 years ago."

She introduced a 10-item list she dubbed as "An Islamic Bill of Rights for Women in the Mosque," which included the right to enter through the front door and to lead prayers.

For many critics, the forum was a blasphemous affront to mainstream Islam.

Particularly controversial was Wadud's periodic substitution of the Arabic word for God, Allah, with the pronouns, he, she and it, arguing that God's omnipresence defied gender definition.

"All she is doing is twisting the interpretation of Islam to suit her needs. This is blasphemy, pure and simple," said Mohammed Nussrah, a Brooklyn native whose family is Algerian. Nussrah, a member of a local Muslim group named the Islamic Thinkers, added: "If this was an Islamic state, this woman would be hanged."

Hanged. They would hang her for praying to Allah and encouraging others to do so. Because it's blasphemy. No, I don't get it, either.

"It's time for us to take our place in the mosques," said Nadwa al-Dawari, who moved to the United States from Yemen.

Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, said Islam has become increasingly suspect in U.S. culture. But even as American Muslims search for new leadership after "the U.S. government has delegitimized the Muslim leadership in America," their efforts are unlikely to win support abroad.

"People in America think they are going to be the vanguards of change," Haddad said. "But for Arab Muslims in the Middle East, American Muslims continue to be viewed on the margins of the faith."

The sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, the Islamic world's leading Sunni Muslim institution, said Islam permits women to lead other women in prayer but not a congregation with men.

Other critics say Muslim women do have important roles.

"When we said women should not be imams, it's not because they are less worthy or unequal to men, but because they have different, equally important, roles in society," said Iman Husham al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Center in Dearborn, Mich.

Like breeding. Or being bought and sold, or raped as payment on a debt owed by a brother. And breeding - did I mention breeding?