last year Ramadan on radio Ramadan i dedicated a programme to discuss woman and the mosque, and it proved to be a controversial topic, i blogged about it, a whole year has passed and the opportunity came up for me to join in a discussion about Islam and culture focusing on the topic of woman and mosques.I'm doing the children's programme, i guess they didn't want me to get into topics deemed 'controversial', a friend of mine is doing programmes on another radio Ramadan in another area so she invited me over and i happily agreed to stir things up hee hee.
a question was asked whether we had encountered any experiences of culture clashing with religion, and of course i had to talk about being banned from a particular mosque for the soul reason of being a 'woman'. the topic then moved onto mosque committees and i said that i didn't see a problem in woman sitting on the mosque committee, and it took literally seconds for a caller to ring up the radio, it was a lady who had a bone to pick with my opinions.
basically she said that it is not right for woman to sit on a committee for mosques as it is wrong for woman to lead men (who said anything about leading???) plus no woman should have an opinion as her husbands opinion is more than enough and she should be happy with all that he says, and he is her spokes person and this should be applied for all woman!!!!
plus woman should stay at home, they have no need to leave the house, and if they need to pray they can pray in the comfort of there own homes, and a woman should not leave the house even for education!!!
some one shoot me
how bizarre, i always get dumbstruck when i hear such ignorant views, and when i asked the lady where her opinion where from she said it was what she has been told all her life and she added 'its not culture its religion'?????
well i don't know what religion she seems to follow but mine certainly has given me my rights for education, praying in a mosque, having a life for crying out loud!!!
what peeves me of is that Allah gave me my rights yet culture and certain MEN are intent on taking it away, how rude!!!
11 comments:
WA: I agree with you! It really IS amazing how "rude" men have been towards women through the ages and across cultures... sometimes it just makes me want to scream at them collectively "WHAT is your problem???" Why oh why is it so important for them to feel and prove superiority?
I love this quote I wanted to share with you:
"The world of humanity has two wings -- one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible. Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be." (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 301)
Men...
I agree that women do have the right to go to the mosque especially in the west as it gives young Muslim females some Islamic environment but what i disagree with is that the ladies bring their kids !!!!!! (yes i know i hate kids) and while the mother is praying her kids are screaming and the infants are crying and the cause a disturbance to other people ......... although culture might say a BIG NO but from what i understand that the number of females attending taraweeh in libya is raising wa al-himd lil-allah, so that goes to show that religion is taking over from culture :)
tell me why did they ban you? do they have a separate praying room for ladies or not?
Fe Aman Allah
monday thank you for sharing that lovely quote, true :)
there are so many ways that a person can attain respect, but how can any one respect a person if that person does not respect god given rights?
annon lol
akak your absoloutly right about the children, at the end of the day things like tarawih prayer should be prayed in a serene, peaceful enviroment without any disturbances, it is better for the younger children to stay at home during teh prayers to prevent disturbances on those praying, good point akak :0)
i was banned becaus ethe mosque does not belive in providing a sisters wing to the mosque, they really are 100% againstthe idea of woman praying in the mosque, its a big mosque wih plenty of room for both.
i tried to talk to some one from the mosque, they sent an old man out to tell us that the comittee belive mosques are for men only !!!
Salam White African,
I can almost imagine your facial expression as you were listening to that woman rambling on. I wonder you should have said, "what's that? did I hear your husband say you weren't suppose to be on the phone?" LOL I'm sorry that was rude. The world is definitely an interesting place with all the different characters that take the stage. Sounds like you had a wonderful time, alhamdullilah.
We have the same problem here! The biggest Arab speaking mosque in Denmark is run by male morons; they can´t speak properly Danish, publishing books with huge errors, this years imsakiya was a real laugh!
We have some very savy and well educated woman who try to help - yet those morons do not allow women in their board!
When they started to discuss establishing a real mosque building with Copenhagen municipality, I and a couple of sisters moved into their special mosque-comittee as members because we asked the municipality politicians to take women in - after all, we are tired of sitting in basement rooms below the street level while the men enjoy good comfort above while praying!
Good you raised the issue!
I am still working on getting sisters on the board of that mosque; I guess if I really put my mind to it, it will happen inshallah.
wassalam ibee, funnily enough whilst i was talking to her it did occur to me to say that or 'if your husband is your spokes person why are we not talking to him?.
safia brilliant that you took the inititve to get a seat on the comittee, its going to be an uphill struggle im sure but stick with it and inshallah, slowly but surely with sisters like yourself, change is bound to happen.
thanks for sharing :)
EXTREMELY RUDE!
salam alaikum sis
i really can't wait for the day inshaAllah that masjids in my area start catering for sisters, i get the feeling by the time they will i probably have children and wont be able to attend as much! like now for instance during ramadhan i would have loved to join taraweeh coz praying in jammat increases my imaan subhanAllah, what i dont agree with though is the way it was approached by that program on channel 4 'jihad on the masjids'.
take care wasalam
P.S i love that quote, its beautiful, i'm interested in that writer, tell me more please inshaAllah?
wallaykum assalam eternal, inshallah the masjids will start changing there mentality soon, hopefully b4 u have kids :)
and your right i didnt lik ethe way those sisters approache dthe mosque via the media, there are other ways we can sort out our internal problems without the help of external forces.
kitty i know!!!
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