http://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/a/living_up_to_the_legacy/
WOMEN IN MOSQUES
Living up to the legacy
BY ZEHRA NAQVI, FEBRUARY 4, 2010
By historical account, being a Muslim female meant being virtuous,
loving, knowledgeable, and empowered by her faith. Well it’s centuries
later and although we cite to the legacy of Islam, we fail to live up
to it or keep the legacy alive.
Centuries ago, Islam presented a revolutionary take on women’s rights
regarding marriage, inheritance, and civil rights, ultimately
redefining a woman’s role in her community. By historical account,
being a Muslim female meant being virtuous, loving, knowledgeable, and
empowered by her faith. Well it’s centuries later and although we cite
to the legacy of Islam, we fail to live up to it or keep the legacy
alive. Many have already written about the state of our sisters
worldwide, but I want to bring the issue into focus locally as well.
Our mosques and community centers are testament to our failure to
honor the legacy and we have no one to blame but ourselves. In our
mosques, we women settle for half (or less than half) the space in our
mosques even though we are expected to share the space with our
children. We have little to no live programming customized to our
concerns and have to make do with AV feeds of the live speaker in the
men’s wing. We settle for Sunday school classes, but have failed to
arrange for live programming for kids during adult services. Why
aren’t we demanding our due in terms of space, programming, spiritual
guidance, and children’s programming?
What does this type of space allocation and lack of relevant
programming suggest about the place of Muslim women in our modern day
community? What does it suggest about how seriously we as a community
take our role of taking care of our members? What kind of example and
lesson does this serve for our children about the role of women and
the pursuit of knowledge in Islam? What does it mean for the future of
Islam that we are not investing in properly guiding our community’s
mothers and youngest members? What does it suggest to the non-Muslim
who visits our mosque to see how our women are treated and how
seriously we take our commitment to continuing individual and
community education? For those of my sisters who would respond by
saying that “the men are in charge, what can we do?” The answer is use
the knowledge you have to fight for your rights.
There is no doubt that to be a Muslim means to be someone who seeks
out knowledge. Prophet Muhammad stated that “the acquisition of
knowledge is a duty incumbent on every Muslim, male and female.” The
quote was not limited to men, academic learning or learning up until a
certain age. The quote makes it clear that all Muslims are required to
continue seeking knowledge throughout their lives. In essence, Islam
has a continuing education requirement just as many professions in the
U.S. do.
It follows then that a major role of the Muslim community should be to
facilitate the continuing education of its members - all of its
members, not just men. Sadly, judging by the services held in our
mosques, our community is falling miserably short of meeting its
obligation.
Prophet Muhammad once said that “paradise lies at the feet of
mothers.” It is these same mothers that we ignore in our programming,
stuff into spaces too small to adequately house them, and fail to
provide programming for. As it stands now, mothers, who are generally
responsible for looking after the education of ourchildren, are
themselves left without a source of community Islamic education and
spiritual guidance for a time period in their lives when it would most
benefit them in their roles of having to raise the next generation of
Muslims. We do a disservice to all the women in our community – and
indeed the community as a whole - by failing in our responsibility to
provide relevant educational programming for women in our community so
that they may raise the next generation of Muslims in accordance with
Islamic principles and serve as examples of leadership, community
participation, and a commitment to lifelong learning.
This isn’t about me persuading individual Muslims to seek spiritual
enlightenment on their own. This is about something much larger than
our individual selves. We live in a country where we are all pressed
for time, all the time. We have so many things vying for our time and
attention –jobs, classes, children, and families to tend to. So the
little time we do have together at the mosques must be used for
reflection, education, and community-building. This is a
community-wide appeal. I ask that people in their communities band
together to effect real change. Some suggestions as to how: (1) set up
a Women’s Committee to seek out female speakers, set up classes for
women, come up with innovative ways to address the concerns of women
and children in the community, and petition the mosque’s leadership to
include programming for women; (2) coordinate with other mosques to
set up a “Speaker’s Bureau” of female speakers; (3) ask male speakers
to hold separate khutbas related to issues specific to women and ask
them to start training women in the community to become speakers for
women-only services; (4) if your center doesn’t already have one, set
up a youth group and a related monthly girls’-only event for
discussion of social issues specific to the young women in our
community; (5) set up adult education classes to be held at the same
time as Sunday school classes for kids (topics may include, e.g.,
Islamic Guidance on Parenting, Women’s Rights in Islam (re marriage,
inheritance, religious obligations during pregnancy, etc.); (6) become
a part of the mosque leadership; and (7) discuss these suggestions
with other women, and your mosque leadership.
I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can come up with even more
ideas. Each mosque that takes on even one of these steps allows for an
example to be set for other mosques in the area, and for the community
at large. As a community that claims such pride in our legacy, we must
strive to do better in facilitating our members’ pursuit of knowledge.
We must not be lazy in sticking with traditional formats. We have to
reform ourselves, our way of thinking, and our way of doing things so
that we can all become better Muslims and a stronger community. Our
young men and women are watching and learning from our example, so I
urge you to live up to the legacy. Our obligation to our faith and our
future demands it.
Zehra Naqvi is an attorney in New York city and one of the co-founders
of the Council of Shia Professionals.
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