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Late last month, a group of women gathered at the Islamic Center of Washington to pray. In the main prayer room — which is, according to Salon.com’s Broadsheet, “reserved strictly for men.” Women and their prayers are usually relegated to an area behind a visual barrier, to “[protect] the men from female distraction.”
Broadsheet points to The Daily Beast’s coverage by Asra Q. Nomani, who compares the demonstration to “Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat.” She says:
The 21st-century suffragettes are part of an emerging movement that challenges traditional interpretations of Islam — and questions the disturbing fact that women’s rights take a back seat to civil rights in America when freedom of religion is invoked. So, today, a mosque can’t tell a woman of color she has to sit separately because of her race, but it can banish her to a corner, as most do, because of her gender. Some even ban women altogether.
The courageous gang of devout women were asked to leave, but said no. Only after the police were called upon did they choose exit over possible arrest. According to Broadsheet, both CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America “have called for women’s right to pray in U.S. mosques without being forced to hide behind a partition.”
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That’s awesome! It brought tears to my eyes. Women and religion are NOT mutually exclusive. Thank you for posting this story. :)
*applause*
It’s practices such as this that give Islam a bad name. I’m sure no women in the Middle East would have dared this.
The general population usually fears something they don’t understand and Islam is one of those fears.
I fear organised religion as a whole.
I think it comes down to a question of motivation. If it’s just the way it’s always been then by all means challenge it. If it specifically says in the koran that women should remain separate from men during worship then that’s how it should be. If you don’t like the religion then leave it, don’t try and change it to suit your own purposes. They shouldn’t be forced to allow women to intermingle with the men during worship if the majority of the congregation is opposed and they’re following prescribed practices.
I don’t follow any organized religion myself but it drives me crazy when people say they’re going to follow a religion and then pick and choose a few things that they want to obey and then claim the rest is outdated or cultural rather than spiritual or whatever excuse they’re using. You can’t claim to follow a religion and then ignore the majority of that religions teachings.
Yeah but isn’t that how religions evolved? You know, Martin Luther and all the Protestants. They complained, and yeah, created their own church, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea for believers to try and change their religion… I’m sure you know about the massive amount of followers the Catholic church is losing in Europe because they won’t move a milimetre in their beliefs. Maybe if they were more flexible and listened a bit more they would benefit from the suggestions.
Actually, Martin Luther didn’t intend to create a whole brand spankin’ new variety of Christianity. The Catholic church was fairly corrupt by that point and he was trying to bring Christianity back to the basics. The “protest” in “Protestant” is a reference to Luther’s protest against corrupt church practices (the selling of indulgences, etc.).
That’s exactly my point – he didn’t intend to create a new variety of Christianity, but change the already existing one. Just like these women.
But he wasn’t trying to change it, he was trying to fix it and bring it back to what the bible teaches. If the koran says that women should worship in the same room then they’d be trying to fix it but I don’t think it does. I haven’t read the whole thing but I know it has a lot of similarities to the christian bible. Since the bible has a lot to say about women remaining modest and not participating in worship in the same way as men then I suspect the koran does too.
and it’s always questionable whether texts were prescribing a way things should be, or simply working within the culture that existed. The old testament has rules about how you should treat your slaves. Does that mean it supports slavery? It is usually accepted that it’s simply giving righteous ways to live within the society that existed already. The question of women’s role in the church can be viewed similarly – it’s hard to say.
Without taking a personal stand on this, one thing many people also dislike about catholicism is that a lot of things aren’t interpreted from the bible in particular ways, or historical practices, or any basis at all. There are a good number of things that come from ‘papal revelation’. ie. The pope just decided it (apparently on God’s order). That’s how you get a number of the practices that aren’t actually from any of the texts.
The Catholic Church may have many faults, but one of the things I do respect about it is the very fact that it hasn’t budged in all these years. Simply because technologies and times change, doesn’t necessarily call for a change in embedded values and rules. It may make it harder for modern day followers to adhere, but I don’t think something should just become easier because the world is different now.
As for these specific women in this specific religion, I have to agree with Rhonda here. Not that I applaud the segregation of women, but if the Koran does state the segregation as a rule, then…..
What these women must do is evaluate what they truly believe, and if they believe in it enough to endure the inequality. I can tell you right now that Islam is NOT going to alter thousands of years of strict rule-abiding and tenet to placate any number of women. Obviously, you don’t know until you try, but if they truly believe in what the Koran says, they should not try to change the Holy Word of Allah.
I know I’m probably going to get slammed for this, and that’s ok, but I, like Rhonda, I’m sure, am just trying to offer up another angle.
I think the biggest problem the Catholic church has is its inability to distinguish cultural rules from religious rules. There are portions of the Bible that are purely practical instruction based on an isolationist nomadic lifestyle that simply no longer apply. We can wear blended fabrics now because we have washing machines, and we can eat shellfish now because we have the technology to make sure they’re not going to make us sick first. Similarly, priests are only celibate because of antiquated inheritance rules that no longer apply – back in the day, a married priest’s children would inherit the church he worked in, so if the firstborn had no desire to follow in dad’s footsteps, bam, you just lost a church. The only sure solution to not losing church buildings en masse was to make sure priests never had kids so there’d be no one to inherit the property. (This was, of course, one of the many problems Martin Luther had with the state of Catholicism in his day.)
In my opinion, the church needs to seriously take a hard look at canonical scripture and decide which rules are religious in nature (you shouldn’t murder people or take their stuff) and which ones are simply an instruction on how to live a nomadic life in the middle east (don’t touch the bunnies!), then remove the latter. Religious laws ABSOLUTELY shouldn’t budge just because they’ve gotten harder to resist breaking, I completely agree, but laws about things like how far from camp you should bury your poop are just superfluous now unless you have no toilet.
I would have to agree with you. In reference to Catholicism, yes, obviously there are rules which have become obsolete with new technology and times, such as the blended-fiber usage, etc. I was speaking of the moral and more basic scripture commandments, I guess.
An overhaul of rules could be benificial, but then (especially in the Catholic Church) the “where do you draw the line” question comes up, and you start to really shake things up, and I just don’t think people (especially die-hard Catholics) would enjoy that. Not to say that it wouldn’t be a good thing, and that, as new generations emerge, it couldn’t happen, but as of right now, I don’t think it would be….what’s the word….a possibility.
The good thing about it though, at least if you live in America or any other religiously free country, is that you have the choice to join or leave a religion if you don’t agree with it. Unfortunately for women in predominantly Islamic nations, that’s just not really a choice, and the Koran is law.
There’s a great deal of gray area between cultural/practical laws and purely religious ones. I’ll go with the bible here since it’s the holy book I’m most familiar with. Some believe that circumcision is a religious requirement, others believe it was purely a hygiene issue back when bathing wasn’t a high priority. Some think that rules prohibiting women from preaching are outdated cultural rules and others believe they still apply today. Baptism is a big issue with some sects considering it very important and others either ignoring it all together or substituting a sprinkle of water in infancy.
Now that I’ve considered it, I agree with you too Whit and Rhonda. If it says so in the Koran, you can’t change the entire religion- you either have to put up with it or ship out. Agreed.
My problem with organized religions and holy texts (Bible, Koran, what have you) is that they were ultimately written down by humans–human men. Now, humans have a bit of a penchant for fucking up, and I’m not sure I would trust a book written by people with such a tendency to screw up as being 100% correct, especially since a male will likely have some sort of bias due to the culture he grew up in (so would a female, but since religious texts tend to squish women I’m going to say it’s an unconscious cultural/gender bias).
I applaud the women for doing this, because sorry, the Koran has a male bias. So does the Bible. You can’t rely on something to never change with society, because the religious text, no matter how old, has its own societal bias.
Completely agree.
If praying separately is required, then it’s only reasonable to have two similar rooms – not a main room, and a sequestering place.
It seems reasonable that there could exist moderate mosques that allow gender mingling, and others that do not. Islam has such a cultural impact that it seems reasonable for many to want to have the connection, yet lose the details, even if I generally agree that the religion is the religion and you should go with it or leave it.
Second thought.
I think they have a point in complaining about discrimination through religious freedom, but I still support it. And I would support a church that did separate blacks and whites. I would be appalled, but I would agree with its right to exist. Because the government should not interfere with private groups, and religious organisations count. Now, if they are getting any benefits such as tax breaks or whatnot, I think the government is right to revoke them out of nonsupport, but not to disallow their existence.
Once the government can decide how a private group can organise their private functions, there’s not a lot of freedom left.
I completely agree with you.
I completely agree with you as well.
The point is that the Koran DOES NOT say that men and women have to worship seperately. The Koran doesn’t say alot of things that Muslims believe as part of their faith, but that happens with almost all religions. Things get added in from society and then no one can tell were the religious part ends and where the society influence began
“Things get added in from society and then no one can tell were the religious part ends and where the society influence began.”
This is so true. I have noticed this time and time again in the Christian religion. It is very frustrating.
Women have no sense of restraint, must everything be yours? There are plenty of women only institutions, you are even free to make more!!! Any you like!!! But the instant you see a male only institution you become rage driven harpies! Can’t you let them pray in peace? Or will Allah not hear you unless you’ve barged your way into the men’s section? What is it about the word “NO” which makes women crazy? Just a note, if it was men who could not worship with women the dudes would build there own church and worship as they choose. Women on the other hand just complain, screech and make a nuisance of themselves until the people in charge are so sick and tired of them they let them in.
Haha irony.
This is not being daring or motivational. Its being stupid.
Praying behind a partition is not because the rules were based on sexism or because of discrimination. It is to protect the women from the men’s thoughts and such; A woman prostrates and bends while praying, unclean thoughts can enter any man’s mind, and thus distract his prayer too.
Plus it is a strong belief that whenever a woman prays with men, there will be no angels to witness the prayer, and the woman’s prayer will not be accepted by God.
My source? I am a young muslim woman, living in Kuwait.
If these ladies pride themselves on being muslim women so much, they should atleast keep these facts in mind. Are their praying quarters too small? Troublesome? Old? Leaky? Get the troubles fixed.
Why won’t angels be present if men pray with women?
So basically it’s the woman’s fault that men are perverts who can’t keep their mind away from sex even during the holy hours, and that’s why women have to be separated, covered and hidden. Aaahhh now THAT makes sense.
Not.
You just said what’s wrong with your religion, and with hardcore Catholics as well – women have bodies, if men can’t handle it without behaving like rapists maybe they should stay home, not the other way round.