However, Ingrid Mattson, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, one of the groups that has endorsed the booklet, said "I think it will be debated fairly vigorously".

Other groups that endorsed the booklet are the Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Associations of Canada, Council on American Islamic Relations-Canada and Muslim Alliance in North America.

Together those groups "represent the mainstream observant Muslims in North America," Mattson told Reuters.

"That's really good news for the kind of ideas we're trying to promote."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR said women should be able to use the publication to force changes.

"We hope Muslim religious and community leaders will study and adopt the recommendations in this guide as part of a nationwide effort to help restore the rights that Islam has granted to women for more than 1400 years," said Hooper.

Mattson, who teaches at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, said it is rare for women in India and Pakistan to enter a mosque but common in much of the Arab world.

Because Muslims in North America come from so many different ethnic backgrounds, she added, "there has been a lot of controversy on how they should be divided and the place of women."

Hesham Hassballa, a spokesman for the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, said "I welcome the change ... you cannot be a healthy community with women excluded."

A recent survey found that two-thirds of US mosques confine women behind a curtain or in another room during Friday prayers, the Muslim holy day, Reuters said.

The survey, according to Reuters, also found that three-quarters of all regular worshipers were men and a third of mosques do not permit women on governing boards.

And because women must use a separate entrance from men it is often one that is a dingy afterthought, it found.

The debate over women's rights in Islam is complex, Reuters said.

While some Muslim women in America are fighting to gain seats on mosque governing boards and for the removal of barriers in prayer halls, not all agree as many women feel comfortable with a barrier -- whether it be a curtain or wall -- because it offers privacy during prayer.

Some religious scholars argue that the separation is not based in the origins of Islam, or its traditions, Reuters reported.

Muslim men and women pray together in Saudi Arabia each year during the annual pilgrimage in Mecca, one of the five duties Muslims must fulfill during their lifetime.

Many of the world's religions, according to Reuters, face debate over the position of women, such as whether Roman Catholicism should allow female priests or the role of females in worship in Orthodox Judaism, where women are also separated from men during services.

There are about 7 million Muslims in the United States, 2 to 3 percent of the population, though other estimates have placed the figure lower.