OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF TOUCH: WOMEN’S STRUGGLE TO BE HEARD IN THE MOSQUE

Two Muslim women enter a mosque (no, this isn’t the opener of a lame joke).

Both sisters join the prayer, enjoying the Imam’s melodious recitation over the loud speaker – the only communication they have with the walled off men’s prayer area where the Iman stands, leading the prayer. They kneel down and touch their foreheads to the ground. Some time passes and one sister begins to wonder why the prostration, typically no more than 10 to 30 seconds, is now in its second minute. She had enjoyed the extra time to fit in some much needed supplication, but two minutes?

Finally the Imam calls out “AllahuAkbar” the sign for the congregation to rise out of prostration. The sister raises her head and, to her surprise, finds that her friend on the right is standing in prayer while the woman to her left is still sitting! A confused panic breaks out, as sisters on all sides begin to make hurried movements, trying to catch up to where they think the Imam is in his prayer. After another two excruciating minutes of silence interrupted only by static, “Asalamualaykum warahamatullah” booms out of the loud speaker, signaling the end of prayer.

Every sister rises, finishing off the remainder of yet another haphazard attempt at prayer in the mosque, all the while skeptical of the validity of the prayer itself.

Behind that opaque, impenetrable barrier that separates the believing men from believing women, nobody makes mention of the not-so-uncommon “technical difficulty.” There’s no one to complain to anyhow; neither the Imam nor the mosque administrators can see the women behind the forbidding wall.

Such is the state of the majority of mosques in the U.S. and across the world today. Sadly this is a step above the countries which have yet to even designate a section in the mosque for women.

The BARRIER The barrier comes in all shapes and sizes ranging from a completely separate room to a curtain or a flimsy screen. Whatever the shape, the objective is always the same – keep the women and men out of sight of one another. Certainly it’s what our dear Prophet (peace be upon him) would have wanted, right?

Actually… no.

It’s a widely accepted practice, no doubt, but ironically not at all in keeping with the example set by Prophet Muhammad. If you had walked into the Prophet’s mosque in Medina some 1400 years ago, you would find no physical barrier separating the men from the women. Many ahadith give proof to this open arrangement, including one in which a companion of the Prophet, while in the Prophet’s presence, advised women to wait a few moments before raising their heads from prostration so the men praying in front of them would have a moment to stand and the ladies would not catch a glimpse of the men’s private parts–some men did not have the means to purchase long garments which fully covered them when they bent down in prostration—(Sahih Muslim, Vol. 441, Book 4, Hadith 149). Clearly, this indicates that there was no barrier, for the men were in clear sight of the women. Certainly the Prophet could have erected a curtain or a short wall to spare his congregation from this embarrassing scenario, but he never did.

Another hadith tells us that the Prophet Muhammad would ask the men to wait a while after the prayer finished, giving the women time to leave the mosque first without causing a traffic jam at the exit door where men and women would be standing close to and jostling against one another (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 1, Book 12, Hadith #809). This is yet another indication that both genders entered, prayed in and left the very same room of the mosque.

And finally, nearly every Muslim is familiar with the story of the woman who spoke up and contested the Prophet’s companion and second caliph, Umar (R), when he was lecturing at the mosque on the rules of dowry. Did she have a microphone that allowed her to pose the question? Of course not, she spoke from where she sat in the mosque–behind the gathering of men, with no barrier in between her and them, and close enough to be heard and answered.

I know what you’re thinking. These men and women were the Companions of the Prophet who embodied a standard of faith and ethics we cannot dream of reaching. We are nothing like them and cannot expect to be treated like them. True, they were among the best of men and women, but does this mean they were free from temptation? The answer is a resounding no. In fact, one companion confessed to kissing a woman who was neither his wife nor a relative (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 1, Book 10, Hadith #504). More than one confessed to adultery or fornication (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 7, Book 63, Hadith #196). These men and women were human begins; their characters came in all shades, just as those of today’s Muslims, yet the Prophet did not resort to erecting a wall to enforce modest etiquette. If we are to believe that there is wisdom in his every example, then why stray from it in this situation?

But today a barrier is needed, some would still argue. Our men don’t lower their gaze and our women don’t dress appropriately! To this I ask, how can we check our transgressions and strengthen our morals in a mosque segregated by a barrier? After all, an Imam must see a man’s wandering eyes or a man or woman’s immodest dress in order to correct him or her.

Perhaps if there was no barrier, women would not talk as much in the women's section while lectures were going on. Perhaps if there was an imam in sight, they would quiet their children and get off their phones. The physical presence of a teacher has been proven to be more effective for an audience, so you can't really blame all the noise that the women's section is famous for. Honestly, without seeing the speaker, every khutbah and speech in the women's section is no different than listening to an audio CD or a YouTube video. There's no teacher in sight, no one paying attention to them, no accountability or chance of reprimand, so why would they feel the need to keep silent and listen attentively?

The barrier also stands in the way of a woman engaging fully in her community. If there is a talk after prayer, men ask questions by simply raising their hands, but women have to scramble for a note card and pen and toss it over the big wall, hoping it makes it into the hands of the speaker and not the mouth of a toddler passing by. If the mosque needs volunteers for committees or projects, men raise their hands while women do not stir, wondering if their ideas are even wanted. The mosque is losing out too, leaving loads of money on the table during mosque fundraisers. If you haven't noticed, it's not only the men these days bringing in the big cash, and women behind a wall can't raise their hands to pledge the $1,000 the imam is asking for.

The overriding issue that we need to come to realize is that a community cannot be fully functional if we hide half of the congregation and pretend that they do not exist.

But in all truth, the barrier is not ALL bad. It has some amazing benefits that sisters wouldn't trade for anything. Sisters can rest behind the barrier comfortably, nurse their children, take off their hijabs or niqabs, and enjoy their time in the mosque without worrying about ogling eyes from men.

So perhaps the root of the problem is not the actual barrier, but that women were never given the choice to voice their opinion on it. After women were given their inalienable rights in the prophetic era, patriarchal societies in our once bright history slowly started stripping away women's rights. There was a time in Islam's golden age where women, like Umm Dardaa, were permitted to teach masses in the mosque! Later, male-dominant cultures and traditions overrode Islamic law, and women were eventually barred from mosques altogether in many parts of the world (in parts of Pakistan, India, and South Africa women are still barred from the mosques today). Then, as the ummah came out of their backward thinking, women's sections began making their way back into the mosque slowly, but this time with a distinct physical barrier. Men assume the women want the barrier, though they never actually asked women their opinion. How can they?! If women are physically shut off from the rest of the congregations, if they're barred from being a part of the conversation, if they aren't allowed on the masjid board, how can the community figure out if the women want the barrier or not?

So what is the solution then? A few forward thinking mosques have come up with multipurpose partitions accommodating all women in their congregation. In the Nueces mosque in Austin, Texas, a mobile curtain is erected that women can move at their preference. In the ISNA mosque in Mississauga, Canada, a waist high partition serves as simply a symbolic barrier, so the women can still see their imam and engage in their community. Others have erected a barrier covering only half of the women's section so that those who prefer a barrier can stay behind it, and those who don't are not forced to.

In the end, I don't believe the answer lies in either barrier or no barrier, but I believe it lies in our ummah having more open forums and discussions about the barrier itself. Discussions in which WOMEN are given a chance to voice their own opinions about the wall that they face... every day.

Safiya Ravat graduated with a degree in Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh and Usul al Fiqh) from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, as well as a Journalism degree from the University of Houston. She and her husband live in Dallas, TX where they are instructors and researchers at the Bayyinah Institute. Full bio here. Follow them for more videos and posts on Facebook at Mahad and Safiya.

Video originally published by RadTalks.com, and article originally published on www.altmuslimah.com.