More on The Woman-Led Jummah Last Week…
Published by Haseeb March 23rd, 2005 in Current News, IslamUpon reading all the comments I received last week, as well as after reading this weeks TIME Magazine and the article covering this incident (Her Turn to Pray, p.49) . I thought it would be best if I elaborate on this issue further in a new post.
Ultimately it is God and God alone who will be the judge and to whom we all will be accountable for. I have never attacked Amina Wudud and generally have even censored those who made comments that just attack one side of this debate. What I am appalled at is the audacity of the stance people like the promoters of this event, such as Asra Nomani make.
Nomani, and others, justly criticise Masjids and Islamic centers for not being women-friendly, giving them inadequate space, and offering limited facilities. There is nothing wrong with making masjids more women-friendly and allowing women to have greater roles in Islamic centers and Masjids. Comedian Azhar Usman jokes about this issue, how women are often restricted to the “dungeons of the masjids”, but this is a serious one nonetheless. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the American Muslim generation, and is being discussed in the open. (Read any of Jeffrey Lang’s books) Nonetheless, to take advantage of this important problem, and then use these types of sound arguments about a critical issue and take advantage of them to jump ahead to arguing that women should be allowed to lead men in prayer is ludicrous.
The TIME article cites Aisha (ra) of teaching men and women, and leading armies. - But did she ever lead men in Salat? The greatest problem at the root of this debate is evidenced by the people in charge fueling the fire. Ultimately, if this is what a (tiny) group of people decide to do, have a women lead prayers, there is nothing stopping them from doing whatever they want. Thats their decsion and no one can stop them. But it isn’t just that - its a publicity stunt to give people like Asra Nomani and others attention. Asra Nomani, for those of you who dont know was the organizer for this jummah. She wrote a couple of books and basically calls for women’s equal rights in Islam to men. Sounds good right? However her means for going about her personal agenda is counterproductive. She in fact causes disruptive behavior by going into the men’s halls of masjids and prays in the main hall with men. This in fact appals other traditional Muslims and due to this exceedingly rebellious behavior, cause many to reject anything she has to stand for, regardless of how valid some of her points may be. Please dont equate this with Rosa Park’s refusal to move to the back of the bus during the CIvil Rights Movement.
Judgment belongs with God alone. He narrates the truth, and He is the best judge (Quran 6:57)
In the end, like i started off this post, Allah 
is the The Judge. I will not attack Wudud personally, primarly because I dont know much about her. Islam is a religion for all of mankind, including both men and women. No man is higher than a woman, nor a woman higher than a man or any1 better than any1 else for any other reason besides one who has more Taqwa (God-consciousness) (Quran, 49:13). There is no denying this.
If this is in fact such a breakthrough for the Islam, or more specifically women in Islam, why havent all women across the Islamic world, or even in America, or in the NY area come out to support her? Do not some women see the value of the past 14oo+ years of how prayer had been formed? What does it mean for men and women to be equal anyways, are not men and women different at all?
The TIME article ends by with Khaled Abou El Fadl telling TIME that the person who is most knowledgeable should lead prayer, irrlevant of gender. The debate that this gives rise to is whether or not the issue of gender is irrelevant or not. Nomani argues for women to “take their rightful place alongside men”. Should women have a place alongside men? Or do they have their own place where they should aspire to be? I do NOT want to hear any arguments about “separate but equal” analogies with the civil rights debates. Like my good friend Ali mentioned in one of his comments, the differences of the sexes are much greater and prominent than those between races.
I highly recommend the following article on gender issues on Islam. If you are serious in discussing this issue please read this article. I think it does an excellent job of explaining how there is an important and innate difference between the sexes. However, his key point stresses that this difference is not a reason to suppress women as many would argue, but rather be a source of pride to the different social roles that men and women play in the Islamic society.
Boys will be Boys: Gender identity issues
By Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Again, ultimately we are all giving our own opnions, and they are just that. Allah knows best.
ثُمَّ رُدُّواْ إِلَى اللّهِ مَوْلاَهُمُ الْحَقِّ أَلاَ لَهُ الْحُكْمُ وَهُوَ أَسْرَعُ الْحَاسِبِينَ
Then everyone is returned to God, their protector, The (only) Reality. Is not His the command? He is the most accurate reckoner. [Quran 6:62]
9 Responses to “More on The Woman-Led Jummah Last Week…”
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from: United States us
Trackback on Mar 29th, 2007 at 10:44 am
I don’t know much about religion but I think it’s best to keep this tradition intact and give women much more space and better space in the masjid. What happens when you have a woman led masjid somewhere? Those people will be different from other muslims. It’s going to produce a rift and that will pretty much be the end of the unity, one of the most attractive things about islam in my opinion. On the one hand you have this one major split in islam where a 1000 year old event divides the same people along shia/sunni lines. Now you’ll have a second split. A decade later another couple. In 500 years can anyone imagine what islam will be like if there’s 100 different sects? The mosque of latter day imams, the presbysunnis, the episco-shias, the jesus-house sunnis, etc. Division breaks it all up. What is Christianity now? Is it one religion or so many different ones? Where’s the unity there? there is none. thats gona suck…yo
Here is what Sh usuf al-Qaradawi had to say about this issue
1. Women may not lead public prayers of MIXED congregations.
2. However he says and i quote “I believe that any woman well-versed in the Qur’an like Umm Waraqah may lead her family members, including men, in both obligatory and supererogatory Prayers, especially the Tarawih Prayers.”
Read the whole article for his contextualization and clarification of those statements here….
http://www.islamonline.net/fatwaapplication/english/display.asp?hFatwaID=122751
Another thing to keep in mind while thinking through this issue is that fact that salaat/jumma falls in the category of ibadat which is based on Propehtic exmamples It is not subject to changing historical circumstances as social relationships may be.
The Prophet (as) said “Pray in the manner you see me praying.”We would be wise to heed his command.
ur hits will drop now
My problem with the prayer is not just that it was led by a woman but that it happened to be Amina Wadud who has gone on record as saying that she rejects certain verses of the Quran relating to Hudood punishments!Can a person who rejects even one word of the Quran call himself a Muslim?
And the other problem is that she supports same sex marriages.
Salaam!
here is my opinion of Amina Wadud, she threw her scarf towards some arab brother speakers at the Women’s conference or something like that. I think she has an inferiority complex about being a woman and even about being black. She is knowledgeable from what I heard but remember knowing information does not mean guidance necessarily. A person can know a lot and yet all that info can become a source of misguidance for them.
Now a person of knowledge does not address people as she had, she threw her scarf and said you arabs hate me cause I am black except she did not say black. Think of any other knowledgable imaam or speaker getting so emotional to the point that they say such or act in a defensive manner. I personally dont know any.
What is she seekign to accomplish by this or what are other women that agree with her seeking?
You live in America, why dont you uphold women’s rights, equality, progressiveness here. How many Muslim women are CEOs? How many independent Muslim women dominate the stock market and are millionaires? You women cannot compete with non-muslim women so to make yourself feel better, you think, let us compete with Muslim men, we want to be famous and lead prayer. How about first trying to establish a woman US president? I have not seen any? Our predecessors Jews adn Christians have not changed as much why are we trying to outdo them?
Peace
do as you please. Allah
is your judge, not us.
Why doesnt Amina Wadud do something useful like volunteer at a soup kitchen?
My faith is Islam and I happen not to pray regularly. I am appalled at a woman leading a prayer and would never attend one where a woman tries to do that. When praying, I want to concentrate on Allah
and religion and not keep looking at her backside. Amina Wadud and the others who back her are simply divisive people and in fact have no proof that women can conduct mixed prayers in mosques.
Women as far as I know can conduct and they small family prayers at home with family members…
A fact also worth mentioning is Mosques and cultures in the islamic world give a somewhat lesser value to women than men and I think this is wrong and this drives some women to come up with some religious engineering technique to redress the balance. I think that women and places of worship for women, conferences…specially for women need to be given more importance so as to elevate the profile of Muslim women. I would love to see women excel in other fields as well, business, technology…
This woman is seeking attention so the best thing to do is not give her any. Islam is alive and well without her. It is not because something is not mentioned in the Coran, that it becomes permissible. If that was the case, innovations would be added every day.
Anybody with more than 2 brain cells can see that this woman is not right in her behavior. She may have got a PhD in something but I also expect her to be given medals and prizes in the years to come for what she does.
…and what she does is invent her own Quran and try to divide people but Islam is greater than her and anybody who sponsors who and Islam rules forever.