ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's Muslim clergymen have agreed to let women attend funerals and prayers alongside men, as well attend mosque during their menstrual periods — practices that have been forbidden them until now, reports said Sunday.
However, Turkey's top clergyman, Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz, said the decisions, taken at a meeting on Saturday, were not binding on the public and that the believers were free to chose to follow them or not, daily Hurriyet reported.
Yilmaz explained that the decisions were binding for the clergymen to guide the faithful whenever they are asked to comment on those controversial topics.
The declaration by the High Religious Affairs Board said there can be no discrimination between sexes and that women and men were "equal and complementary beings."
The state-run board is Turkey's highest religious advisory body and oversees more than 70,000 mosques in Turkey.
The decisions are expected to heat up a public debate over the place of women in religious services. Some women were recently scolded by imams, or Muslim clergymen, for attempting to attend funeral prayers while some other clergymen have allowed women to take part in the service.
Women have been demanding equal religious rights with men, leading many to question the role of women not only in religion but in daily life in this pre-dominantly Muslim but secular country which is aspiring for European Union membership.
The rulings said women were free to enter mosques and read from the Koran, Islam's holy book, during their menstrual periods.
Yasar Nuri Ozturk, one of Turkey's most popular theologians, said women until now were considered "unclean," during their menstrual period but the decision has ended that prejudice and discrimination.
"This is a revolution," Ozturk told the Anatolia news agency.
In September, the Board decided to take up more controversial questions such as whether Muslim women can marry non-Muslim men.
Nearly all Turks are Muslims. Now, both Muslim men and women can marry non-Muslims, but radical Muslims have been seeking to ban Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men.