African-American professor of Islamic studies Amina Wadud led a mixed-gender prayer service in New York last Friday, and now a whole lot of Muslims want her dead.

Soad Saleh, who heads the Islamic department of the women’s college at Al-Azhar University, considered the act an apostasy, which is punishable by death in Islam.

“It is categorically forbidden for women to lead prayers (if they include men worshippers) and intentionally violates the basics of Islam,” she said. She said women should not lead prayers because “the woman’s body, even if veiled, stirs desire.”

Saleh also suggested the prayer service was a ploy to weaken Islam.

“It’s a foreign conspiracy, through secular (Muslim) organizations, to sow seeds of division between Muslims,” she said. “But God will protect his religion.”

Abdul-Moti Bayoumi, of the Islamic Research Center at Al-Azhar, said Wadud had carried out “a bad and deviant innovation” that contradicted the Prophet Mohammed’s sayings and deeds.

Not allowing women to lead mixed gender prayers “is not discrimination between women and men but is to safeguard men from being conflicted and torn by human desire while they are standing behind a woman while she’s bowing and kneeling,” Bayoumi said.

These aren’t fringe radical elements speaking. Al-Azhar University in Egypt is the world’s highest Sunni Muslim authority.

But the radical elements are also interested in these uppity women.

The prayer service and reactions of those who attended were covered by the two major Arab satellite networks, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

One Web site known for postings by Islamic militants carried photos of women at the service who had failed to cover their heads.