The Brandeis Muslim Student Association (BMSA) closed its prayer suite for two days last week in response to "several disturbing off-campus e-mails that raise safety issues" about last week's visit of Asra Nomani, according to BMSA adviser Qamar ul-Huda. Nomani, a civil rights activist and former Wall Street Journal reporter, sought to hold a controversial mixed-gender prayer service in the suite.

BMSA rejected the request of Florence Graves, the director of the investigative journalism program that co-hosted the event, to have Nomani lead a mixed-gender service in the suite, saying that she could only lead a women's service.

Nomani instead held mixed-gender services on Chapel's Field Wednesday morning and at the Women's Studies Research Center that afternoon. The services attracted attention from outside media outlets, including the Christian Science Monitor and ABC News.

BMSA held their services Friday at Sterling Medical Center, where the local Muslim community often meets.

The event came on the heels of the controversial female-led mixed prayer service in New York City by Dr. Amina Wadud of Virginia Commonwealth University two weeks ago.

Following the release of her book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam, Nomani also came here last week to relate her experiences with journalism, and specifically what the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan taught her about Islam.

"I think most of the people in our BMSA are not opposed to a woman leading prayer," one BMSA member said. "But it was more of an issue of Asra Nomani leading prayer."

BMSA president Taimur Dad '07 said the worrisome e-mails came primarily from Muslim communities in the greater Boston area upset about the prospect of a woman leading a mixed-gender prayer service.

"It wasn't serious threats from other people, it was basically phone calls and e-mails from people in the Boston area asking us if we are really sponsoring this event and is she really leading the prayers," Dad said.

According to a statement released by the University Wednesday, services in the suite were cancelled because the suite was too small to host a larger gathering and because the "sanctity of the space" would have been breached by the large audience.

Nomani spoke Wednesday about what led her to a career in journalism and her campaign to improve women's rights in the Muslim community.

"In Asra's friendship with Danny Pearl she realized that those who killed him did so in the name of Islam, and that they prayed five times a day as is traditional ... the day before they slaughtered him," Graves said. "And she was shocked that people used her faith to murder a man simply because he was a Jew.