An Eid gone awry
January 20, 2009 by Roberta D
Filed under Women's Rights
I’d ironed my abaya and scarf the night before, and set multiple wake-up alarms on my cell phone. About half an hour after fajr ended, I headed out of the apartment to the cozy mosque up the street where I often pray on weekends. I was extra excited because although I’d been living in İstanbul for over a year, I had been out of the country for the last few Eids, meaning it would be my first Eid prayer in Turkey.
As I rounded the corner, quietly reciting the Eid takbeer, I reminded myself that I would probably be one of very few women there. Turkish women don’t traditionally attend Eid or Friday prayers at the mosque; it’s just not the cultural practice. But I knew from my own experience that there were usually a handful of younger women that showed up for the khutbah on Fridays, and their numbers were steadily if slowly growing.
With that image in mind, I ignored the stares of the couple of men standing around near the entry to the mosque complex and scanned the mosque courtyard for any women as I took off my shoes. None. When I entered the mosque itself, it was more of the same: Though the mosque was by no means full, there were only men in it. The building’s construction is such that the women’s prayer area is actually in a separate room to the right, so I headed there. I walked in, and it looked mostly empty except someone I saw out of the corner of my eye sitting way in the back. Success — almost.
I was putting my shoes away when I realized that there was a man sitting in the front of the room. Hmm… I looked toward the back, where I thought I had seen an old woman as I walked in, but no, he was actually an old man. I sighed, having expected at least one other woman to be there, and at the very least no men in the women’s section! More than a little deflated, I went to collect my shoes and head out. In the same space of time it had taken me to figure out that this wasn’t going to work out as planned (maybe 10 seconds) it seems that the men in the mosque had come to the same conclusion. An older man rushed into the women’s section, and (assuming the combination of brown skin and an abaya meant I was an Arab) began shouting “Laa! Laa! Laa! [No, no, no!]” and gesticulating frantically. I left, undergoing a second round of stares on my way out of the mosque, through the courtyard, and out the main entrance. So much for my first Eid prayer in Turkey!
So much for the Eid prayer … and so much for the Sunnah too:
Umm ‘Atiyah (radi Allahu `anha) said: “We were commanded [and in one report it says, he commanded us -- meaning the Prophet, sall Allahu `alayhi wa sallam] to bring out to the Eid prayers the adolescent girls and the women in seclusion, and he commanded the menstruating women to avoid the prayer-place of the Muslims.” Narrated by Bukhari and Muslim.
Alhamdulillah. The experience, coupled with reflection, has been a valuable one for me, and I feel it’s a good example of why there’s a need for a movement for and by Muslim women to reclaim their Islamic rights. The main lesson I learned after mulling the incident over is that Muslim women need to stand up for Muslim women’s rights — because nobody else is going to.
In Turkey, the state controls mosques and religious education through the Religious Affairs Directorate (the Diyanet). Basically, since they control mosque administrations and haven’t told mosques to make space for women for Friday prayers and Eid prayers, it doesn’t happen on the large scale, despite the complaints and efforts of a courageous few young women, because Turkish culture dictates otherwise and the Muslim men don’t care. The mosque I’d visited was in one of Turkey’s most conservative neighborhoods, and I am sure that many, many of the men there know that the Sunnah is for women to be allowed to go to the mosques on Eid. None of them do anything about it. The small number of women petitioning for their rights isn’t yet big enough to overturn the government setup and the control of culture.
Incidents like this don’t just happen in İstanbul, where there are many mosques, and at least a few of the bigger ones were indeed open to women on Eid. Males-only mosques are also found in Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the blatant dismissal of Muslim women’s rights. In North America, the UK, Australia and other Western countries with burgeoning Muslim communities, the neighborhood mosque is often the only option for miles and miles, and these mosques (which are centers of the Muslim communities in addition to their function as houses of worship) often have similar misogynist and un-Islamic views and practices.
Muslim women in these places have a responsibility to make sure that their Muslim communities don’t develop a culture where Muslim women can be so easily ignored and religious leaders wield the power to prevent them from their God-given liberties. Western Muslim women have a brief window of opportunity to ensure that in their nascent Muslim communities, where Muslim culture and practice is still settling, Muslim women’s rights become a fundamental standard. As demonstrated by the example of modern Turkey (where, aside from the mosque issue, practicing Muslim women are widely deprived of many fundamental rights), once your rights are taken away, it’s awfully hard to get them back.
Photo courtesy: Miralem Jakirlic
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This is a very sad phenomenon. It’s perhaps one of the greatest manifestations of cultural ignorance. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the sisters to fight fo their own rights, rather men should be the ones defending them. Your experience reminds me of several incidents in Karachi where women were not allowed or strongly discouraged AND the imam would not tolerate any discussion on the matter. Praying in jamaat is a huge blessing for both sexes, and I can’t imagine the punishment for taking that awayfrom someone, let alone the denial of any other rights of women (right to own their own land, business, etc among several other rights that are frequently denied to them).
May Allah swt revive the sunnah within the ummah and eliminate the cultural ignorance, ameen!
ameen! i agree that there needs to be a serious revival within the ummah (globally but i’ll work to affect change locally). the practices are disgustingly un-Islamic and dare i say it haram! if allah swt has already given a person his/HER rights, how can any person, muslim especially, deny that person their right to worship? it’s totally next level hypocrasy. and i get really upset about this but we, the righteous, must hold our position and actively work steadfastly to combat the ignorance that prevails.
@Asif: I’ve heard that in Pakistan women aren’t allowed to the mosque at all, is that true?
@basheera: I agree; education is an imperative. People have to know what their rights are so they can insist upon them.
Roberta, it is not true that in Pakistan women aren’t allowed to the mosque at all. Of course not. I went to mosques in Pakistan. I never went for jummah but on Fridays, there would be traffic jams almost because tons of people were going to prayers. I believe I saw women in these crowds.
Hmm.. Sakeena, I don’t know how it is in Pakistan right now, things may have changed but when I visited Pakistan about 6-7 years ago I had a very hard time finding a masjid where women were allowed. I’m talking about the NWFP area. Most villages in NWFP have masaajid only for men where no women are allowed.
wAllaahu a`lam.
@ Sakeena: Alhamdulillah, it’s good to know they’re not kept from the mosque completely!
Good post.
My hubby is from Turkey, and I’ve been trying and trying to get him to see that the women don’t *have* to be in a different room to pray, or in a balcony … his response is always “well women aren’t required to pray Friday prayers” but I think it’s soooo important to have a sense of community. Not to say that women should intermingle with the men, but there’s nothing wrong with women being in the back of the room, not separated by a wall.
I was surprised when we visited Turkey about 2 years ago that women don’t go to Friday prayers. It’s just for the men.
My hubby also has told me that there was a women in Turkey (or maybe there have been a few) that were too vocal about women praying in the mosque and they later “disappeared” and were found dead. That’s just shocking. I don’t understand how people can defend their point of view by just saying “that’s the way it is”.
I agree with Asif, I think it needs to be men that defend the women’s rights.
I actually heard something quite interesting re: women praying salaah at the masjid. Apparently women were once stopped from going because at that time women rarely left the house. Hence, to go to masjid would require her to leave the house. Now, in most parts of the world, this is hardly the case – women pretty much leave the house every day, for shopping, to work, pick up the kids, etc. But the sad part is that in many places no one has thought to revise the original decision. The result – women are ‘barred’ from the masjid, yet ‘intermingle’ at the shops etc. It does seem rather demeaning if you ask me…
Not allowing women in masaajid, and while I don’t agree with it, is a valid “FIQH” opinion held by many scholars through out the ages, with a precedence among the sahabah. But, I wouldn’t hold my bearth if you salafist modernist call it a “bid’ah” and “oppression” of women.
Your rhetoric is filled with the same Euorcentric pomp and terminology used by neo-imperialist thinkers. You see muslim world as the “other”, not just the “other” but the demonic “other”. You feel as “western” “liberated” Muslimahs…a need to liberate your ‘eastern’ counterparts. And as a result of such way of thinking you even end up forgoing fiqh, shar’iah, and the countless no. of scholars (since they are parochial eastern men anyway, right?)….
….just a new hijabified face of modernism. Nothing more.
@Lyallpuri: In Turkey there are no fiqh rulings being referred to as an excuse to keep women out of the mosque. The force here sidelining women is culture, plain and simple. Your accusation that I’m a Salafist modernist is unfounded, so I won’t respond to that. I find it strange, however, that you accuse me of seeing the Muslim world as a demonic other. Where have I evidenced anything to that effect? I have not. I also find it questionable that you accuse me of trying to liberate my so-called Eastern counterparts. To the contrary, my piece reflected on my experience with my community in the East and the lessons that my community back home in the West could learn from that. So the influence really is in the other direction East –> West. “just a new hijabified face of modernism. Nothing more.” … what does hijab have to do with any of this?
Firstly, whether you like it or not…you’re in the end of the day a salafist modernist (true to your forefather ‘abduh).
Secondly, it is clear from the sentiments of your article, that you associate women being cast out of mosques with “conservative” Turks, who in turn are associated with religion. When you criticize them, you by extension criticize their practice of islam. Given the fact that Turkey is brazenly secularists, these very people are they ray of hope, the upholders of Islam. When you work around their understanding of Islam, with your typical holier than thou Western attitude…you not only seek to change one aspect of their culture but it’s entirety, as it is intrinsically related with their practice of religion.
Individuals like yourself are greater danger to harmony of Muslim cultures and their practice in the east, because you work from “within”. There are so many ways to tackle this issue, but your high browedness isn’t one. Please keep your Western mindset to West, keep your “European/American/or whatever Islam it is that you have these days” to yourself. Muslims in the east don’t need your sympathy. They could do with help, but not sympathy borne out of people like you thinking you have some sort of advantage over them just because you are “Westerner”!
I must say, you seem more intent on labeling me than listening to what I have to say. Come on! The connection here I’m making with women not having equal masjid rights is entirely about culture, culture that contradicts religion. I don’t believe in giving men a break because they’re religious and other men are secular. That doesn’t excuse them for anything in the least. Have you ever been to Turkey? If you have, you would know from experience that these men will not be the “ray of hope” for Islam if what they are perpetuating is a version of Islam convenient only for themselves. How can you uphold Islam if you are not, in practice, upholding Islam?
@Lyallpuri
“When you criticize them, you by extension criticize their practice of islam.”
The point being is that the women not having a place in the mosque or pushed over into a corner room is a CULTURAL practice.
“Given the fact that Turkey is brazenly secularists, these very people are they ray of hope, the upholders of Islam. ”
I’m guessing your Turkish then?
From my viewpoint, I’m not thinking that Turks are our “ray of hope”. Women in Turkey don’t attend jum’ah, it’s just accepted that way. Is anything going to change the men’s mind about that? I doubt it, at least I don’t see that happening any time soon.
“There are so many ways to tackle this issue, but your high browedness isn’t one. ”
I’m reading this article as an American, and I don’t see any of that attitude in her writing. As she stated, this is an issue here in the US too, with women being pushed into a different room, not involved with the masjid at all…
Thanks for your comments Aynur
. I think that our ray of hope needs to be ourselves. There are some Turkish women working to change things, and some of them have gained some ground, in addition to support from some Turkish Muslim men. I think it can be done insha’Allah — and in fact it must.
@ Roberta,
My experience was mainly in Karachi. I don’t know if things have really changed there now but I remember definite discimination against women in the local masjid (that often had ample space to accomodate them). I didnt mean to generalize Pakistan in general.
Ah, okay. jazak Allah khayr for the clarification!
Salaam alaikum,
This article (and the subsequent discussion) really hit a cord with me. In Hyderabad India, the masaajid are almost like men’s clubs. I remember, when I got married there and stayed there briefly (4 months) if my (then)husband and I were out shopping…he would leave me at the store and go to the nearest masjid or musalla (practically one on every street), while I was left to fend for my salaah myself. Where was I supposed to do it? What’s the best place if not at the masjid? Isn’t salaah a fardh for every Muslim, man or woman? But I remember to even suggest it was like “What?! No, that’s not a place for you.” For whatever reason, from the spectrum of “They dont have a place set up for women” to the unspoken “You will be starred at and oogled,” the reason was there. So much so that if men in the household were going to salaah they would take the male children (in this case 4 and 2) and leave the girl (aged 3). What kind of standard is that setting?? The little girl is not worthy? *shudders* Astaghfirullah. If for finding this an atrocity, I am labeled something (from the likes of Lyallpuri) then so be it. At least in the “west” I can raise my voice against an injustice.
Salaam alaikum
PS Keep up the good work.
wa `aleykum selam wa rahmatullah,
jazaki Allahu khayran for your comment. I think that’s particularly ridiculous about the kids — like okay you’re going to take your little boys out and leave the girls at home? What kind of sense does that make? It’s conditioning from the very start the idea that worship is more important for males than for females; truly horrible. I hope and pray that masajid in the US and Canada don’t evolve into males-only institutions. Thanks for stopping by the site!