British Muslim history will be made in an Oxford hall next Friday. For the first time in Britain, a woman Muslim scholar will publicly lead men and women in prayers, and deliver the khutba, or sermon.

Taj Hargey, the chairman of the group sponsoring the event at the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford (Meco), fully expects controversy. “This is going to be a major step forward in women’s rights,” he said in an interview at Wolfson College, Oxford, of which he is a member. “But it will provoke discontent from conservatives — from the Wahhabis and their fellow travellers. The literalists interpret certain Hadith, sayings of the Prophet, as meaning that women can’t lead a community. But for us, the golden rule of Islam is that whatever is not specifically prohibited is permitted.”

He is right to expect a storm: three years ago, when Amina Wadud, the American Muslim professor due to speak on Friday, led a mixed prayer service in New York, she faced criticism and death threats. Next week, the topic of Wadud’s sermon will be justice, and it is justice that Meco seeks in promoting the event.

“Since the criterion for leading prayers is knowledge of the Koran, there’s no reason \ Amina Wadud shouldn’t do it,” Hargey said. “Her Koranic knowledge is superior to that of most men.”

From Inayat Bunglawalla, of the Muslim Council of Britain, the response to the forthcoming prayer service is a terse “No comment”. And he questions how representative Hargey is. “We have no dealings with Taj Hargey,” Bunglawalla said. “His organisation has no affiliation with mainstream groups in this country.”

In the eight years since starting Meco, Hargey has grown used to being cast as a marginal figure. Born in South Africa in 1961, he cut his teeth on the anti-apartheid struggle of the 1980s, and it shows. He is selfconsciously combative, with a heightened sensitivity to discrimination, whether racial or gender-related. A historian by training, he is an energetic contributor to the letters pages of newspapers, and is dismissive of Muslim scholars and leaders who don’t support Meco’s tactics or platform.

“Another coward,” he said, of one who declined his invitation to attend Meco’s forthcoming seminar on Islam and feminism. “A sissy.”

Meco recently held a public debate, arguing, daringly for British Muslims, that Islamic theology as well as British foreign policy was to blame for British “extremism”. If this echoes right-wing rhetoric, Hargey is quick to say that he detests the thinking of the Right but that in the interests of free speech it must be heard. When a furore erupted after the Oxford Union invited British National Party leaders to speak at a debate, Hargey picketed in favour of their right to speak. “We have to rock the boat,” he said. “It needs rocking. When Rome is burning, do you just sit around and fiddle?”

In the wake of 9/11, progressive and moderate Muslim movements have been criticised — and, in some cases, have even been self-critical — for passively allowing conservatives and extremists to hijack Islamic discourse.

Nobody could accuse Hargey of quietism. While he sits at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from Islamist extremists, he shares both their showmen’s flair and a contempt for the Muslim establishment. He is critical of Saudi Arabia — “primitive barbarians” — and has called for an internationalisation of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, “which should not be part of a tribal outfit, or a family business, as they are under the Saudis”.

Last year, after a Buckinghamshire schoolgirl mounted a legal challenge against her school, which forbade her from wearing a niqab, the veil revealing only the eyes, Meco offered to contribute toward the school’s defence. The case was thrown out, but the dramatic offer made news, and solidified Hargey’s position as an “equal opportunity critic” of both the right wing and Muslim conservatives.

He maintains that the concept of “hijab” has been misused by conservatives, and that it merely refers to the notion of modesty, not to covering hair. The Koranic verse that talks about covering up meant “cover your bosoms, not your head”, he said. “We can’t confuse the bosom with the head.”

He wants Meco — a self-funded organisation with about 200 supporters — to give Muslims “an alternative to Saudi theology”, which, he feels, dominates far too much of the British Muslim establishment.

“Why should the most prestigious mosque in the country be run by a Saudi diplomat, someone who answers to a foreign king?” he asked, referring to the Regent’s Park Mosque. “He’s not a stakeholder in British society.”

His organisation aims to be nonsectarian, welcoming Shias, Sufis, “anyone who calls themselves a Muslim”, and inviting Christian leaders to give Friday sermons occasionally. At the heart of its mission is encouraging “theological self-empowerment”. Where many madrassas focus on rote learning or blind devotion to received interpretations of Islamic traditions, Meco’s classes teach the Koran in sequence, stressing themes rather than literalist interpretations.

Hargey’s main goal, he said, is to develop a voice for British Islam, one unencumbered by the cultural baggage of South Asia or the Middle East. “The idea is to become indigenous to this landscape,” he said. “We need an Islam that is rooted in and relevant to 21st-century Britain.”

Mosque sermons need to be delivered in English, he said, not Urdu or Bengali. “In Oxford, six days a week, Muslims wear jeans or suits,” he says. “And then when they come to mosque, they suddenly put on a shalwar kameez. Do they think God only speaks to them in Pakistani dress? God doesn’t want you in that bloody dress; all he wants is a clean dress.”

Hargey will be at prayers next Friday, in a suit and tie, ready to help to make history.