MUSLIM HATE FOR WOMEN PRAYER LEADERS
Mosques Relegate Women's Prayers to the Basement
By Hajer Naili
WeNews correspondent
Thursday, April 3, 2014
A
social media project launched last year asks Muslims to compare the
space their mosques offer women and men. Its founder says that every
mosque she's visited in the United States, Canada and Europe has a side
or back entrance for women.
NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--When Matea converted to Islam in December 2013
she looked forward to joining the life of her local mosques here. Today
Matea, like many Muslim women, is disillusioned.
"When
I first converted I wanted to be part of the mosque environment. But I
went to mosques and what I found was sort of an unwelcome environment
for women," she told Women's eNews during a discussion organized last
week by Women in Islam, a New York-based organization working to
empower Muslim women through knowledge and practice of Islam.
Matea didn't want her full name published.
"The
spaces are separated, there are different rooms and sometimes it was
even in the basement," Matea continued. "And as a convert, it feels
very strange to you. I used to go to church and everybody is part of
the same community. You can see the preacher. You can hear the sermon
very well."
Momentum
is building to improve Muslim women's prayer spaces inside mosques.
Last year, Hind Makki, a resident of Chicago who describes herself as
an interfaith educator and community activist, launched the Side
Entrance project on Tumblr and Facebook, inviting people from around
the world to share photos of the mosques they attend and show the
differences between male and female prayer areas.
"We show the beautiful, the adequate and the pathetic," says the Side Entrance's introduction on Tumblr.
Makki
hopes the Side Entrance website will help more Muslim men realize the
terrible state of Muslim women's prayer spaces and encourage them to
join the women's call for action and change.
In
an email interview, Makki said the key to improving women's treatment
at mosques is to hold a broad discussion that includes religious
leaders, mosque architects and lay Muslims.
"Every
time I visit a mosque, I assume that I must enter through a side or
back door, if I'm allowed in at all," Makki said. "I assume that my
prayer space is not the one that men use and that I must look for signs
directing me to a basement or a mezzanine floor. This has been the case
in nearly every mosque I've visited in the U.S., Canada and Western
Europe."
Less Segregation
Not all mosques segregate women to a basement or a narrow, poorly maintained prayer area.
African
American mosques from the Imam Warith Deen Muhammad community and
mosques of Bosnian-origin congregations are described as offering more
women-friendly environments, said Makki.
"My
default is to assume that immigrant-origin Middle Eastern and South
Asian Sunni mosques are not going to be welcoming to women," she added.
Due
to their different understanding of Islamic texts, African American
mosques following Imam W.D. Muhammad are the least likely to use
dividers (10 percent) compared to other African American mosques (68
percent), according to the report No. 3 the American Mosque 2011
Survey, which focuses on women in mosques in the United States.
However, about 70 percent of Arab mosques, mixed South Asians and
others have curtains to separate women from men.
Another
factor listed in the report is whether the imam is born in or outside
the United States. Mosques whose imam is American-born are much less
likely to use a divider (38 percent) compared to mosques with imams
born outside the United States (78 percent).
Makki
realized the importance of the issue during the month of Ramadan in
2012 when one of her friends was kicked out of a mosque for praying in
the second men's prayer hall. Since the women's prayer space, which was
located in the basement, smelled of mildew and the air conditioner
wasn't working, her friend, and a few other women, decided to pray in
the last rows of the men's second prayer hall.
"She
wasn't even praying in a mixed-gender line," said Makki in the email
interview. "That didn't go over so well. The imam threatened to call
the police on them if they didn't leave the premises."
Community Divided
Muslims
are divided about the need for sex separation during prayers. Some
argue women have no place at the mosque and should stay home, or at
least be physically separated from the main prayer area. Others argue
that women are welcome in the same space.
"There
should be no enforced barrier," said Cyrus McGoldrick, executive
director at Majlis ash-Shura of Metropolitan New York, also known as
the Islamic Leadership Council.
McGoldrick
points to the prayer room of the Islamic Center of New York University
in Manhattan, where women pray behind the men in the same space. A
small divider is installed for the women who prefer to be hidden.
McGoldrick
said the Prophet Muhammad made no requirement to have women physically
separated from the men's area during prayers. "I think when you
authenticate what the practice of the prophet was and his community,
you see that we are very far from it."
That
echoes the U.S. Mosque Survey 2011. "During the time of the Prophet
Muhammad, women prayed in the same area as men, in rows behind the male
assembly," the report says.
Yet,
many mosques in the United States continue to physically separate women
from the main prayer area, according to the U.S. Mosque Survey 2011,
which was distributed at the March 28 event.
"Between
1994 and 2000, the percentage of mosques that used curtains or dividers
to distinguish women's spaces increased from 52 percent to 66 percent,"
says the document. In 2011, the figure didn't change: 66 percent of
mosques were still using a divider.
Aisha
Al-Adawiya, one of the authors of the third report of the U.S. Mosque
Survey 2011 and founder of Women in Islam, is highly concerned because
she says women are losing motivation and that is bad for the religion.
"There is a downwind trend within the Muslim community where women have
simply stopped going to the mosque and as a result their children are
not going to the mosque."
Unwelcome Fridays
Women
are particularly discouraged from going to mosques on Fridays, the day
for the congregational Muslim prayer when space is limited and
arguments against women's participation are used to prevent crowding,
authors of the report found. And when women feel unwelcome they may
prefer to stay home to pray.
Farida
Kabir, who lives in Brooklyn, only started going to mosques two years
ago. Before that, her family members, who are from Bangladesh, told her
that women don't go to mosques.
"They
always told me to stay at home, especially my dad," Kabir told Women's
eNews on the side of last week's discussion. "He was telling me that
women don't go to masjid (mosque). You stay and pray at home and that's
how it should be. That's how I grew up."
When
she finally went to a mosque two years ago after she was married she
felt unwelcome. "A man told me this is not the place to be, come back
another time!"
Mosques
are always open during prayer times but some stay open all day so
Muslims can pray at any time of the day. The general understanding in
Islam is to never turn a worshipper away.
The
American Mosque Report 2011 found that mosques with women on their
boards are less likely to use dividers between the sexes during prayer
and have higher female attendance; 20 percent versus 13 percent at
mosques that do not allow women on the board.
The
problem of providing women with good prayer space is sometimes
explained as a budgetary issue but Makki said it's more a matter of
attitude.
"If
a community is ideologically opposed to providing women access to
sacred space, it doesn't matter how big their budget is--women will not
have equitable facilities," Makki said. "If a community believes it is
the prophetic tradition to provide women access to sacred space, even
if their budget is tight, they will find a way to equitably accommodate
female congregants."
Hajer
Naili is a New York-based reporter for Women's eNews. She has worked
for several radio stations and publications in France and North Africa.
She specializes in Middle East, North Africa and women in Islam.
First woman to lead Muslim prayers angers traditionalists
By Amol Rajan
The Independent
Friday, 17 October 2008
Islamic history will be made in the heart of Oxford today when a woman Muslim scholar leads Friday prayers and delivers the khutba, or sermon, for the first time in Britain.
Professor Amina Wadud, visiting scholar at the Starr King School of the Ministry, Berkeley, California, received death threats after she led a service in New York three years ago. That event was held at an Anglican church after mosques refused to host it.
At 1pm today on Oxford's Banbury Road, Ms Wadud will deliver a sermon at the start of a conference on Islam and feminism at the University's Wolfson College. Organised by the Muslim Educational Centre Oxford (Meco), the event has attracted fierce criticism from traditionalists, who claim that the Koran insists on men leading prayers.
Police will be on hand to ensure protests do not spill over into violence.
Taj Hargey, a veteran of anti-apartheid struggles in South Africa currently engaged in post-doctoral research at Wolfson College, is Meco's chairman. "Our situation is simple," Mr Hargey said. "The golden rule of the Koran is that whatever is not expressly prohibited is permitted.
"Literalists interpret the Hadith [the sayings of Prophet Muhammad] as implying a woman should never lead a community. But even within the Hadith there is a woman called Umm Waraqa whom the Prophet allowed to lead prayers in a household and to teach her neighbour. Though it recognises biological differences between men and women, the Koran absolutely specifies gender egalitarianism.
"The people opposing this are the Wahhabi, Deobandi; misogynistic segments of Islam. They don't believe in the innate equality of men and women."
Born in 1952 to a Methodist father and a mother of Muslim heritage in Maryland, Ms Wadud, who has written books on the Koran and memorised most of it, first delivered a Friday sermon in Cape Town, South Africa, in August 1994. Seen as a pioneering feminist, her last book, Inside The Gender Jihad: Women's Reform In Islam (2006) was partly an experiment in autobiography, and included details of the threats to her life in New York.
That sermon, delivered to about 100 men and women, led to a concerted attempt by some Muslim scholars to have her removed from the academic position she then held at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Today, she will be speaking on justice to several hundred men and women, and her sermon having a mixed audience has angered Conservative members of the Muslim community. Mokh-tar Badri, vice-president of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: "With all respect to sister Amina, prayer is something we perform in accordance to the teachings of our Lord. It has nothing to do with the position of women in society. It is not to degrade them. This is something divine, not human. We do it the way it has been ordained by God. Women can lead prayers before other women but before a congregation of men and women, a man must lead.
"This is not confined to Islam. Catholics don't appreciate female priests."
Last week, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "We have no dealings with Taj Hargey. His organisation has no affiliation with mainstream groups in this country."
Meco has 200 supporters. Its chairman is no stranger to controversy. In 1983, Mr Hargey was jailed in his native Cape Town for anti-apartheid protests.
"Look at what [suffragette] Emmeline Pankhurst did," he said. "People told her she was mad but now we worship her. In time people will say similar things about Amina Wadud."