Muslim mamas--Anyone else read Asra Nomani's book about going on hajj?

[peaceful_mama]

Sorry I have blanked on the exact title! It is currently on my bed next to my sleeping DS.

Anyway if you have read it, you will know what book I mean.

I am currently in the part where she has come back to Morgantown, WV and is protesting the conditions at her local masjid. (Which, in my experience, seem extreme. At a Ramadan potluck that was also supposed to be a "grand opening" of the new masjid, the women had to eat over at the old masjid, for example.)

Does anyone think though that she has the right idea? I mean, honestly, I have yet to see (and I will say I have FAR FROM READ EVERYTHING) where it says that as a woman, I must sit in a small room and attempt to listen to the Friday Khutbah and other talks over a low-quality loudspeaker system.

And I have never been to Mecca, but if it is true (and I don't know why it would not be) that the women and men pray even in the same lines there, then WHY is my local community on the news every year at Eid looking like a bunch of..........well, I am having trouble thinking of a word here, but the women are easily an entire room-space and more away from the men.

And in the Prophet (saws) day the women and the men prayed in the one-room mosque. The women were behind the men, the women on their menses did not go, but they all sat and they listened and they learned.

And she is right....I never thought about it before, but at the masjid I went to when I first reverted, the sisters did have to walk right by the Dumpster to get to our door.

I thought the WHOLE POINT of dressing the way we do, jilbabs, abayas, hijabs, all of this was to not show ourselves to the men, to be able to walk around freely and not worry about men ogling our bodies.

SO.....if this is the case, then WHY should I have to walk on ice (in the winter) between the building and a Dumpster to go into my designated door? And why SHOULDN'T we be building masjids with a large enough room to accomodate EVERYONE who wants to hear the khutbah and Quran without having to rely on a questionable loudspeaker broadcast?

Trust me I'm not talking intermingling. I even get having a bit of space between where the men end and the women begin. I'm saying making that space the size of my apartment is a bit much

I'm saying save the separate room with a loudspeaker business for what it was in my former church--the room for someone with a fussy baby where they could go and nobody heard the baby but the person could still--somewhat I suppose--hear the service.

I'm not even saying have it be that way for things like Ramadan potlucks. Actually, I, as a nursing mom would highly PREFER to have a women's and men's separate room for those occasions. And quite honestly, I DON'T go to Friday prayers--because I can't hear most of it over the kids on the sound system anyway and I feel (PERSONAL OPINION) it is actually my place and duty to be home with my children rather than having them distract the others at this age in their lives.
There's plenty of time for them to go and learn when they are of an age where they can understand it. DS1 sometimes goes with DH and has since he was 3. He's also a personality type who will get intimidated a bit by the group and sit quietly through the talk because of it.

Does anyone else though think it's a bit wrong that we often have second-class accomodations? And does anyone see any evidence for the strict two-room separation in authentic sources??? Because I'll read and be educated if you have, I'm just saying I have not. And apparently on the hajj, it's NOT that way...
(I'll admit, this is the first account I've read of a hajj experience. Incredible eye-opener, I did NOT envision the lack of segregation she talks about--yeah, the women and men sleep in separate tents, but that is about IT as far as segregation goes, according to her.)

Anyone ever thought about trying to change the status quo? (though in my comm. that would take building a new facility I suppose the current places in question do not have one room large enough to do this. but even in building plans, the status quo will remain the same from what I see. I admit the farthest I'd go it alone would be to ask that they de-ice ALL the sidewalks and move the Dumpster. And possibly improve the sound system...)

[kangamitroo]

bumping this. seems someone out there must have some feedback for you.
i am studying Islam, but not a muslimah myself. i have read the book, but can't offer light from personal experience. i do want to extend my support, because it sounds like you have a very frustrating experience at your masjid.

as i said, not experienced here....but i do pray that youor community finds a way to be more welcoming to all of its members.

peace be with you.

[wolfmom]

I am also not muslim but the book you are speaking of is "Standing Alone in Mecca" and I did read it and found it to be a very engaging book! I also hope you find the support and peace you seek among your community.

peace and health,

[Liquesce]

As-salamu 'alaikom. I think you might be interested in the Women-Friendly Mosques booklet that was put out some years ago ... it sounds as though it might help you to structure what you're feeling a little bit.

Although hajj is probably not the best example to go by ... the modern reason for a more relaxed attitude towards gender separation is much more logistical than ideological; it does not apply during the regular prayers in the same facility. In short: it is not separated because keeping everyone alive has sadly proven challenge enough, without adding efforts to police just who may be where and when on top of it all.

At any rate, I think the key thing when one feels their mosque is set up in a way that disadvantages individual members or entire groups of members is to not set about to make a war of it from the start. What I mean is that these issues can lead to such indignation that can lead to such defensiveness which can combined lead to an utter stalemate where one was not necessarily needed. Talking to the leadership, getting involved in leadership, taking initiative in rectifying things that don't really require direct leadership involvement, opening up community-wide dialogues ... all of these things have a much greater potential for success than going in like gangbusters with a "no status quo!" sign held overhead, kwim?

And the other thing to remember is that not everyone will perceive injustices the same. So, for example, if you are a lone woman in a community of women who like having a separate space, arguing for a regular space in the main hall may not be the best first route, but instead to argue for a better sound system, a new childcare policy or additional separate space for people with children, etc, may work better in that community. It's about finding out what people's needs really are before trying to enlist them in an argument for something they may not feel they need, and/or deciding if something is important enough to you individually to be willing to formulate an argument alone.

And finally, too, to be aware that in a small facility arguing for space in the main hall is likely to be complicated by the space the men need to fulfill the obligation of praying jummah in congregation, for example. So again, it's a matter of taking into consideration the needs of the individual community. While it would be nice if every mosque in America was specially built, most are making use of the imperfect fit that is buildings already available.

Dumpsters and ice though ... that's just lame. I would like to imagine what come down to safety and sanitation issues should not be hard for any facility to rectify, but then I'd also like to imagine any facility would see the problem from the start on their own, and we all know it's not always that simple. Although I will say that I personally really like having a separate (dumpster-free ) entrance. The mosque my family attends only has a main entrance, for example. I don't really attend ... the same thing as you, with little kids I don't want to be that person distracting everyone else. The last time I was there was at my wedding, when I had fancy strappy shoes with a tiny little buckle that was a little hard to catch. So there I was, crushed in this little hallway with all of the attendees trying to find their own shoes, just trying to get mine on, all the while getting bumped into and jostled, taking great pains to not hike my skirt up too high, and spending far too much time with my face on the level of everyone else's bums. And that was among family and friends! If I ever go for regular prayers I'll have to wear flip flops just to avoid the whole entryway scene.

[chimomma]

Assalamu alaikum,

Sorry to hear about your bad masjid experience. I have found visiting masjids through out the country that this is not typical. Most of the time I find the women's area sectioned off from the main hall or esle a bacony over the main hall. I have seen some with very small areas for women, most likely a space issue. There is only one masjid I know of who has really deplorable conditions for women. The other masjids ran by the same managment don't even allow women at all, so I think they keep bad conditions to discourage women from coming under some misguided idea that women shouldn't be in the masjid.

I did not read the book in questoin, but have read some about it. I think she even mentions the masjid I live by as a victory that went from having a 6 foot curtain to a three feet one. Well, they put up tall dividers now which I am so glad for! I hated praying in full site off all the men passing by. I also wear niqaab so it is nice to have a little privacy to take it off or nurse a baby. I think many agree to wanting the privacy. There is a group of "activist" women who are always trying to take the curtain down,etc. I don't really get their whole agenda. I think they connect it to women's rights to be able to not have a barrier between them and men. The whole thing just causes a lot of fitnah which I think is totally unecissary since our space is already adiquate.

[Liquesce]

Originally Posted by chimomma

Most of the time I find the women's area sectioned off from the main hall or esle a bacony over the main hall.

Actually that was one of the things that struck me when I watched The Mosque in Morgantown ... while obviously there were some serious communication and leadership issues there, the women's prayer area itself is a really quite nice balcony. It just struck me as an odd banner to wave at that particular location when the real issue seemed to be a sense of an "old boy's club" making the decisions, and not so much the building layout itself.

The masjid I referenced above, the one my family uses, does have a separate room for women, but it is large, clean, bright, with a very clear sound system, and it is in one of those buildings where the separate space creates access for women due to space limitations in the men's area.

[AutumnSunshine]

I didn't read the book, mainly because I'm very put off by her antics. I agree that there are many Muslims who need to be more mature when discussing these issues, but that goes for people on both sides of the fence, kwim?

There are a lot of other issues that come into play when you consider how masjids are designed and used. Yes, I believe that separate spaces are limiting. I prefer mosques where there are men's and women's sides on the same floor. I HATE balconies because it means stairs and stairs + kids = nightmare.

I HATE separate rooms/buildings linked by sound/tv systems because of the issues it causes. The sound system is not working today, the guy giving the lecture/khutbah/leading the prayer couldn't care less if he's speaking properly into the microphone, women can't ask questions, women can't see the speaker, women think that they don't NEED to listen to the speaker and feel free to talk/let their kids run wild, can't ask questions of the speaker, when there is a sajdah in the recitation or there is a "blip" in the sound system or it's Eid prayer and the Imam uses a variant number of takbeeraat, everyone gets confused and our prayer gets ruined because we can't see what Imam and those who can see him are doing to know what's going on.... all situations I've been in.

BUT... and this is a big BUT.... this is the minority of communities I've been in, and in those communities where this is an issue, it is because it is an old facility. Our local masjid is one of those. It is some little houses that were bought up and gradually knit together into a "building" starting back in the 1960s. We're a small community and they are fundraising for a new facility (which, I should point out, will be a one-room deal with women on one side, men on the other) but that's a long way off. The women enter through the "back" and the men through the "front", but that is solely due to the orientation of the lot and the building relative to the qiblah (prayer direction)... and in our community let's just say the women are not super-interested in religious stuff, many have no respect for the facility we do have, and the kids are running around like monsters and there is food on the carpet...The facility we have now is not big enough for separate dining rooms, so while the men eat in the multipurpose room and have beautiful carpet on their side, we have to eat in our prayer room and have a dirty carpet. What else are we going to do unless we have money for a new facility (the plan for which includes dining rooms separate from the prayer hall). Now, if the proposed design came through with built-in inequality, I would have made some noise about it and tried to get the rest of the women in the community on board with me.

FWIW, the trash cans are kept on a side of the building far from any entrances. But I do remember going to Dar Al-Hijrah in NoVAand noticing the dumpsters were near the women's entrances which I found to be totally inconveniently located at the back. (This was 10 years ago.) And the stairs were a nightmare (with kids running up and down them) and the elevator was always not working (or needed a special key to work them of course so that kids didn't mess with it) and I'd see elderly women struggling to get upstairs. Ugh.


It's like the people who keep claiming that mosques in the US were allegedly found to have "extremist" or "Saudi" literature or whatever. Yeah, well, here's what happens in most communities. Somebody finds or has a bunch of books. They donate them to the masjid. The person who accepts the donation doesn't even look at them, but sticks them on a shelf somewhere. Especially if they're in Arabic, the guy accepting them probably can't read Arabic anyway. Of course we can't just throw stuff out because anything with Allah's name on it, Qur'an, etc., has to be shredded or burned and who has the time to do that? As it is, it's almost impossible to find people willing to do the vital dailiy work of the masjid, let alone extra housecleaning like that. So books sit on shelves and then some idiot comes along and pronounces it "extremist literature" and the whole community gets tarred and feathered. So, there are issues with the inner workings of Muslim communities that most people really, really don't understand.

Back to mosque design, it's a little-discussed fact of life that Muslim communities (despite the relative wealthiness of many of them) still struggle to raise adequate funds to construct and maintain large facilities. The fact is that masjids are not just prayer spaces for the area's Muslims but also socializing facilities. When women and men want/need to be able to socialize and so forth in separate spaces, for everyone's comfort, sometimes the only option is something that is segregated. Non-segregation can be more limiting at times. I've been in places where there are just too many guys who have no respect for women. They stare. They make me uncomfortable. Maybe they're scanning the crowd for potential wife-material, I don't know? When I wore niqab way back when I would feel uncomfortable removing the niqab to pray because there were guys there.

Now I have seen some creative solutions like retractable walls, two-way mirrors, etc., but hey, some people just have limited imaginations or abilities. And this is one of the reasons why I think we will only see real progress on these issues when Muslims who were born and raised here take over the leadership roles in Islamic centers. I have nothing against immigrants (I'm married to one I love ) but I think they can lack the imagination needed to make things work in the US.

Every mosque has its communication and leadership issues. Maybe some more than others, although I don't think I've ever been in a community except where the people ultimately in charge of the facility were really mostly interested in their own power and prestige than getting anything useful done. Anyone who wants to get any real work done in this world has to walk on social/ethnic/power politics eggshells and that's not just in mosques! One of my best friends is Lutheran (ELCA) and the stories she tells me about her church's leadership confirms to me that this is not a uniquely Muslim issue, but a human one.

[AutumnSunshine]

Originally Posted by peaceful_mama

I am currently in the part where she has come back to Morgantown, WV and is protesting the conditions at her local masjid. (Which, in my experience, seem extreme. At a Ramadan potluck that was also supposed to be a "grand opening" of the new masjid, the women had to eat over at the old masjid, for example.)

That sounds extreme to me but as I talked about in my otheer post, I would have to know what exactly was the situation. Was the new facility so small that the crowd they expected at the "grand opening" (which might have not actually been a "grand opening" at all, but maybe something else like a fundraising dinner to raise the remaining funds needed to pay off the loans for the construction) going to overflow the place? Was the old facility planned to be used for "dirty" stuff like eating, babysitting, etc., and the new facility strictly for prayers and classes later on? Did somebody decide the women should go over to the other building because of the kids? Do you see what I mean here? It is so silly to think that the women were shoved over the old building because the people in the community hate women. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't happen. I tend to think that Ms. Nomani is exaggerating or embellishing the situation to fit in with her "Muslims hate women, look at my mosque how much they hate me because I'm a woman" storyline.

[peaceful_mama]

I do see the point of Nomani being a person with a "Muslims hate women" agenda.

back later baby needs me.

[peaceful_mama]

Back.

I have now finished the book, and like I said, I see the "Muslims hate women" slant.

And in one part she mentions basically wearing a hoodie as her head covering. It said a lot to me about potentially how she'd come off in general-*I*, a non-judgemental (in my own definition at least) fairly liberal Muslim would have a hard time respecting someone who has decided a hooded sweatshirt qualifies as a hijab. I can see how choice of attire could have totally affected people in her community's view of her. Maybe it's stupid to judge a person by what she wears, but when we're talking about trying to change some of the rules, maybe a person needs to start by *respecting and following* the rules, like dress.

I do not agree that women and men should pray in the same lines. AT ALL. I would NOT be comfortable with a strange man next to me. And I don't see how you could have mixed lines and nobody next to someone opposite gender and unrelated. (IF anyone is reading this and has not seen a Muslim prayer line, you're easily in body contact with those next to you.) And I think it should be separated, not late-coming men behind women or anything like that.

I'm not sure exactly what I *would* like to see changed. But I know that currently I don't attend in part because of my kids and the disturbance they may create, but also because yes, the women are listening over a often-poor-sound-quality PA, and act as though this gives them the license to use it as social hour and let kids run wild. (pretty sad to say I've thought I wouldn't want my children to think that most of those children's behavior is an acceptable way to behave there.)

I could possibly see a solution in a one-side-for-men, one-side-for-women prayer hall where those who want to listen to the khutbah uninterrupted can be there. Or a front-back.

But then, I would not feel comfortable for example, nursing my baby there. So then do I go to the (my envisionment) women's "dining hall/social room"? and is there sound PA'ed into this room so I don't have to miss it entirely? And if they're going to bother with the expense of a sound system for that purpose, then I guess it just makes sense to have separate rooms entirely.

Which brings you back to what happens when you've got a room full of women who can't see what's going on and someone has decided this gives her license to yak to her neighbor and both ignore their children, and then the rest can't hear due to that noise....

Do better PA systems solve that kind of thing?


I know I live in a community that is using what is available and the separate rooms have risen also out of a lack of space. Sometimes there's not even enough space for all the MEN in the room for them, on Fridays.

I know our section is small and overcrowded too.

I don't know what I'd like to see in a new design, but I'm a bit intrigued by this balcony thing...has anyone seen the setup? Can you actually SEE and HEAR the main hall? Cause I think *that* would bring about more quiet...feeling like you are in the same room and interrupting the prayer/khutbah if you are noisy.

I'm not necessarily OPPOSED to the separate room thing. I know we're also in an era where most people have 'always' gone to masjids like this, who have been born and raised with genders segregated and are more comfortable with it. Men as well as women. It's not the desire, when given a choice, to socialize separately that is a problem--heck, my Midwest Christian family mostly does that at holidays! It's the attitude---banning for example, women's study groups while allowing men's. Things like that.

The more I read of her quest to "Integrate" the mosque, the less I really got the POINT of it all.
Yes, I agreed there could be more respect there--the example of the woman taking shahada and the men ignoring it, refusing to hear her on the PA. She says they were all socializing while this woman was taking her shahada, ignoring it basically. That is disrespect.
(But there's also nothing saying you've got to have ANYONE witness it. BUT I can see where it seems pretty UNWELCOMING to do it at the masjid and have a roomful of people acting like nothing is happening.)


I also get that yes, hajj is so crowded that NOBODY has time to go around enforcing things like gender segregation. It's not an argument that we need to run home and pray next to men.

Like I said, I don't know what I'd like to see, but simple stuff like equal ice removal would be a start. (the Dumpster, last time I saw, had somewhat moved. but it used to be closer to the door.)

[Liquesce]

Originally Posted by peaceful_mama

*I*, a non-judgemental (in my own definition at least) fairly liberal Muslim would have a hard time respecting someone who has decided a hooded sweatshirt qualifies as a hijab.

Totally off topic from any actually point of this thread ... but, may I ask why?

I'm not sure exactly what I *would* like to see changed. But I know that currently I don't attend in part because of my kids and the disturbance they may create, but also because yes, the women are listening over a often-poor-sound-quality PA, and act as though this gives them the license to use it as social hour and let kids run wild. (pretty sad to say I've thought I wouldn't want my children to think that most of those children's behavior is an acceptable way to behave there.)

In your shoes, the most practical solutions that would appear to me would be first to address the matter of the quality of the sound system with the mosque leadership and ask that repairing or upgrading it be made a budgetary priority, or even just yourself think about what you might be able to do to organize a fund raiser for those purposes, and second to see to the possibility of forming a women-run women's prayer area committee to help address the issues of noise and childcare. (And if there is still ice, to also bring up the safety issue with the leadership and/or find out how other areas are de-iced ... if, for example, it turned out that whoever first arrives just does it, ask that they include the women's entrance in that, or that salt/ice melt/whatever be placed at the women's entrance such that whoever first arrived among the women could take care of it. Or really, even just bring a bag yourself and say, "hey, I noticed there's a problem here so I brought this to help out" ... sometimes things just go unnoticed, and like UmmZaynab indicated, it's not as though mosques are in the real world run by men who are sitting around laughing at the prospect of their wives and daughters toppling over on an icy walkway. Coming with a simple solution to things that get overlooked is always appreciated by everyone.)

I do think -- and I don't mean it's what your doing in this post -- but I do think that, because gender is a sometimes contentious issue in our religion, when we do see something wrong that affects women it's very easy to sometimes go first to an "oh, the gender inequity!" stance rather than just saying, "huh, that kind of sucks ... I can fix that." Like if the doorknob is loose on the women's washroom, it might be more productive to just show up with a screwdriver than to sit everyone down for a membership-wide discussion on doorknobs as metaphors.

[CatsCradle]

Hi ladies. I'm not Muslim but I enjoyed reading Asra's book. I didn't know about it until recently...after I had googled her. Why did I google her? We grew up in the same neighborhood and went to junior high school together! We lost touch when my family moved and I was always curious to find out what she had done with her life. I find her path very interesting because even though we were friends at one point, we never discussed religion. Oddly, I didn't even know she was Muslim.