Clerics rattled over namaz by women

LUCKNOW: The All-India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) has made a unique beginning which promises to shake up the highly conservative Islamic world. The AIMWPLB has advocated rendition of regular namaz by women in mosques. Not only that, it has even started construction of mosques exclusively meant for the Muslim khawateen (womenfolk). However, Muslim clerics are highly cynical about the seemingly path-breaking move.

“Islam does not forbid offering of namaz by women,” says AIMWPLB president Shaista Amber. The highly combatant activist has earlier fought tough verbal battles with the clerics over the very establishment of a separate Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board. She has also been in the eye of a storm for introducing a nikahnama (marriage contract) which enforces the marital rights of the Muslim woman.

Amber recently organised a special namaz for women in a mosque erected by the AIMWPLB on the outskirts of Lucknow. Though on this occasion the women offered namaz behind the menfolk, Amber says soon only women would render namaz in this mosque. “We will have women to conduct the namaz. There is nothing wrong or un-Islamic in having women hafiza, alama, mufti and maulvis (clerics who normally conduct the namaz in a mosque),” she says.
 
“Mullahs and maulvis who prohibit the offering of namaz by women have their own interests,” she says, adding that Muslim women would gain confidence and learn to stand on their own feet once they start offering namaz regularly in a large group. “This would foster a community feeling, help women discuss their problems with others, and also strengthen the faith at large,” she told DNA.

However, clerics have their reservations about Amber’s non-conformist ways. “Women have all the right to offer namaz but it has to be done in a way that does not compromise the honour and reputation of the woman or her family,” says Lucknow’s Naub Imam Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali. “Women can offer namaz at home. They don’t need such revolutionary methods to communicate with Allah,” quips the Shahar Qazi, Maulana Irfan.

Asked about the acceptability of her self-proclaimed pioneering move, Shaista Amber is resolute. “After all, women used to offer namaz in mosques regularly during Prophet Mohammad’s times. Then what is the harm now. I am sure people would see reason in what I have started,” she says. Amber also points out that women offer namaz in the Haram Sharif Qaba of Saudi Arabia without any hassle.

Renowned Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad is one of the rare supporters of Amber’s allegedly “unorthodox” idea. “I don’t see any harm in women offering namaz whether it is at home or in the mosque. Worshipping Allah is the right and duty of every true Muslim - man or woman,” he says.

But in the largely partriarchal and orthodox Muslim society there are bound to be very few such voices of approval. Shaista Amber, the lone campaigner, perhaps has a gruelling battle ahead of her.
 
g_deepak@dnaindia.net