Congratulations are due to Asra Nomani, who won this year’s SAJA fellowship for a planned project to go to Tamil Nadu to report on movement to build a women’s mosque there. The project has been initiated in the town of Pudukkottai, as a reaction against male-dominated mosques and local, male-only Jamaat boards, that have the power to decide many personal and marriage-related disputes in India’s Muslim community.
The movement is being spearheaded by a woman named Daud Sharifa, and has already received a fair amount of coverage in the past two years from major news organizations such as the BBC. (More stories can be found here [Outlook] and here [New American Media]). Despite getting quite a bit of attention, the project is years away from completion owing to fundraising difficulties.
However, as one reads more about Daud Sharifa, the symbolic project of actually building a women’s mosque (which would be the first one to be built anywhere in the world) begins to seem somewhat secondary to what might be her main goal: building a broad-based, national movement to support the rights of Muslim women. Since the government has done little to help (and sometimes much to hurt) the cause, Sharifa and her NGO, STEPS, have gone ahead and created a women-only Jamaat (“Congregation”) to arbitrate family disputes using a feminist slant on Islamic law. They have been in operation since February 2004, and get a steady stream of cases to resolve (according to this article, they get about 15 petitions a day).
Daud Sharifa’s justification for the project seems strong:
“The male jamaats are unlawful kangaroo courts that play with the lives of women. A mosque-jamaat axis is a power centre that controls the community. When women are refused representation here, we have no choice but to have our own jamaat. And since a jamaat is attached to a mosque, we have to build our own mosque.” (link)
Critics of the idea are for the most part the usual suspects, but at least one prominent Muslim woman, Badar Sayed, has also criticized Sharifa’s plans as a kind of defeatist separatism: “We need to fight alongside people. We can’t just separate ourselves and put the clock back 100 years.” (link)
Incidentally, Sharifa weighed in righteously last year, when the Indian Ulema went after tennis star Sania Mirza, for having the gall to play tennis in shorts. In response to Anna’s post on the topic, Punjabi Boy posted a comment from the same Daud Sharifa:
“If Islamic law says a woman is not supposed to wear such clothes, then they should know the same law also forbids dowry, alcoholism and incest. Yet the jamaat promotes dowry and even guns for a share in it. Why donÂ’t they stop it first if theyÂ’re living by the Islamic law? TheyÂ’re not bothered about a girl earning pride for the country. They are making an issue out of a stupid matter,” said committee coordinator Daud Sharifa Khanam from Pudukottai (link)
Yes, exactly.
Let’s hope Asra Nomani’s forthcoming coverage of Daud Sharifa and the “women’s Jihad” sheds more light on this inspiring example of grassroots struggle.
One truism, which has withstood the test of time, at least the thirty three and half years of my existence, is that Women are much more courageous than Men.
Hope Ms.Nomani has a safe andsuccessful trip.
This is not the first Women’s jamaat or Masjid in the world. They actually have women’s masjids in China amongst the 2 million Chinese Muslims.
However, I believe that more women should be scholars and jurists especially on issues that are explicitly gender-related because I don’t think a male could understand the biological dynamics of women’s bodies the way a woman could.
Just a question – are Muslim women allowed to pray in Mosques? On TV you only ever see Muslim men worshipping at Mosques. Unless I missed something here.
I’m sorry in advance if this question offends religious individuals as it is not intended to.
Reason I ask is because on TV photos of worshipping in Mecca the men and women are both there but not in Mosques. Also, do Shia and Sunnis worship in each others mosques?
It might be that since camera people are often men, or the teams include men, they don’t go to the women’s side—I’ve never been inside a mosque, but everything I’ve read indicates women can pray in mosques, just not, traditionally, with the men.
Just a question – are Muslim women allowed to pray in Mosques?
sometimes.
Also, do Shia and Sunnis worship in each others mosques?
sometimes.
I really like Asra. She is doing great work for the equality of women in mosques across the US. I think Asra is a much better agent for change in the Muslim world than people like Hirsi Ali who have sub zero credibility with the Muslim masses.
Women are allowed to pray in Mosques. Typically, the Mosque needs to be “female accessible” to allow for a female congregation. This means, their needs to be a separate entrance for women to enter the Mosque. Also, the women’s prayer area is separate from their male counterparts, it is behind the male area (usually elevated).
As an aside story, the Madina Masjid in Toronto did not have the facilities to allow for female worshipers. In the mid 80’s an African Muslim woman came to mosque and demanded to be allowed to pray. They made makeshift accommodations to allow for her to pray that day, and within a month had made necessary alterations to the Mosque to allow for women to come.
Isn’t this a case of separate but equal? How is building a mosque necessarily going to empower women if it’s always known as the “woman’s mosque” Sort of like how no one watches the WNBA.
I think we only see men praying at mosques because most cameramen are probably men.
Good. We are witnessing the beginnings of a sea change. I predict that the Islam of the wahhabis, salafis, ayatollahs and mullahs is doomed. Perhaps Sufism, which is based on indian spirituality to a large extent, will make a comeback.
Heres another strong, outspoken, angry muslim woman, a bahraini arab, boldly lashing out at Islamic Sharia for its sexual exploitation of women (including even little girl babies according to her!). A must see video:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFrlQPvBmC0[/url]
“kangaroo courts” brrrr. leave the kangaroos alone mate 🙂 they are our national icon.
Why cant men and women pray together in Islam?
Separate but equal reeks to me of apartheid / segregation.
Could someone explain. Please dont use “belief” as a reason. The same logic extends to Apartheid. After all many white South Africans believed that they were fulfilling the commandments of God.
Incidentally, there is a huge ruckus brewing in Australia about a Muslim cleric who compared women with meat! Time to throw the jerk into gaol under the Aussie version of the Patriot Act. This joker claims he was misquoted as he was preaching in Arabic.
In South India – preaching is mostly in the local language eg Tamil,Malayalam,Kannada. Has anyone been to a mosque in USA /UK where an Imam preaches in Tamil or Malayalam or Bengali. In Oz they tend to stick to English or Arabic.
‘Tis unfortunate that I know more than a few people in Tamil Nadu who would read this and not even see the gender equality angle. Rather, they would be upset that mosques are being built in South India.
and check out asra nomani’s latest project, a unified muslim voice for peace, tolerance and understanding for ALL people, all religions, all genders, all sexual orientation:
http://www.muslimsforpeace.net
we are planning a peace march for october 2007 and EVERYONE is invited.
love, ameena
one more thing:
women DO indeed pray in mosques and more of them should! (i say this as the mum of three daughters)
and, if you were watching tv last night, ABC news showed lots of muslim women (us amongt them) praying in mosques – i am guessing cameramen haven’t shot many women just to be respectful. however, i have been in tons of mosques that have neither separate entrances nor separate areas – men and women pray together – perhaps not side-by-side, because many women feel uncomfortable given the physical nature of the prayer.
there is no injunction against men and women praying together in the quran.
also, in many modern masjids, like ours, sunnis, shias, sufis, and even the occasional buddhists, christians, jews and hindus pray, meditate and give khutbas (sermons).
the idea is that the Divine sees your heart and intentions, not your external form…
peace, ameena
I’ve followed Duad Sharifa’s project for a women’s jamaat for a little while now and I really hope it takes off. It will set an example for all Indian women – we all suffer from patriarchy, not just the Muslim women, though the self-protecting defensiveness that goes with being Muslim in India no doubt makes it a bit harder to push change through.
why cant msulim women and muslim men pray together in the Mosque?
why cant muslim women and muslim men pray together in the Mosque?