A Woman’s Reflection On Leading A Salaah.

[BOB]

This is an article written by Muslimah Yasmin Mujahed, a feminist about Amina Wadud for a monthly newspaper called Al-Ummah in this country that I live in.

 

 

Part One:

 

On March 18th 2005 Amina Wadud led the first female-led Friday prayer. On that day women took a huge step towards being more like men. But did we come closer to actualizing our god given liberation?

I don't think so.

 

What we so often forget is that Allah (sw) has honored the woman by giving her value in relation to Allah (sw), not in relation to men. But as western feminism erases Allah (sw) from the scene, there is no standard left but men.

 

As a result the western feminist is forced to find her value in relation to a man, and in so doing has accepted a faulty assumption. She has accepted that man is the standard and thus a woman can never be a full human being until she becomes just like a man-the standard.

 

When a man cut his hair short, she wanted to cut her hair short, when a man joined the army, she wanted to join the army. She wanted these things for no other reason than because the "standard" had it.

 

What she didn't recognize was that Allah (sw)dignifies both men and women in their distinctiveness, not their sameness and on March 18th Muslim women made the same very mistake of their western and Christian counterparts.

 

for 1400 years there has been a consensus of the scholars that men are to lead prayers, as a muslim woman why does this matter? The one who leads prayer is not spiritually superior in any way.

 

something is not better just because a man does it and leading a prayer isn't better just because its leading.

 

had it been the role of women or had it been so divine , why wouldn't the beloved Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) have asked Khadija or Fatima or Ayesha (the greatest women of all time) to lead? These women were promised Jannah and yet they never led a prayer.

 

but now for the first time in 1400 years, we look at a man leading a prayer and we think "that is not fair", we think although Allah (sw) has given no special privilege to the one who leads. The imam is no higher in the eyes of Allah (sw) than the one who prays behind.

 

On the other hand, only a woman can be a mother and Allah (sw) has given special privilege to a mother, our beloved Prophet (p.b.u.h) taught us that Jannah lies at the feet of mothers. But no matter what a man does he can never be a mother. So why is that not fair?

 

When asked who is most deserving of our kind treatment? Our beloved Prophet (p.b.u.h) replied "your Mother" three times before saying "your father" only once. Isn't that sexist? No matter what a man does he will never be able to have the status of a mother.

 

And yet when Allah (sw) honors us with something uniquely feminine, we are too busy trying to find our worth in reference to men, to value it-or even notice.

 

We too have accepted men as the standard, so anything uniquely feminine is, by definition inferior. Being sensitive is an insult, becoming a mother-a degradation.

 

In the battle between stoic rationally (considered masculine) and self-less compassion (considered feminine) rationally reigns supreme.

 

As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is just a knee jerk reaction: if men have it, we want it too, if men pray in front rows, we assume this is better, so we want to pray in the front rows too.

 

If men lead prayer, we assume the imam is closer to Allah (sw) so we want to lead prayer too, somewhere along the line we've accepted the notion that having a position of worldly leadership is some indication of one's position with Allah (sw).

 

A muslim woman does not need to degrade herself in this way, she has Allah (sw) as a standard, she has Allah (sw) to give her value, she doesn't need a man.

 

In fact, our crusade to follow men, we, as women, never even stopped to think to examine the possibility that what we have is better for us, in some cases we even gave up what was higher only to be like men.

[BOB]

Final Part:

 

Fifty years ago, society told us that men were superior because they left home to work in factories, we were mothers, and yet we were told that it was women's liberation to abandon the raising of another human being in order to work on a machine.

 

We accepted that working in a factory was superior to raising the foundation of society –just because a man did it. Then after working, we were expected to be a superhuman , the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect homemaker and have the perfect career.

 

And while there is nothing wrong, by definition, with a woman having a career, we soon came to realize what we had sacrificed by blindly mimicking men. Many of us got divorced while the rest of us watched as our children became strangers and soon recognized the privilege we’d given up, and so only now, given the choice, women in the west are choosing to stay home to raise their children, the same women we muslims thought had a far better marriages and life than us.

 

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, only 31% of mothers with babies and 18% of mothers with two or more children are working full time.

 

 

And those working mothers, a survey conducted by Parenting Magazine in 2000, found that 93% of them say they would rather be home with their children but are compelled to work due to “financial obligationsâ€. These obligations are imposed on women by the gender equality of the modern west and removed from women by the gender distinctiveness of Islam.

 

It took the women in the west almost a century of experimentation to realize a privilege given to Muslim women 1400 years ago. Given my privilege as a Muslim woman, I only degrade myself by trying to be something I am not and in all honesty, I don't want to be a man.

 

As mulsim women idolizing our counterparts in the west, we will never reach true liberation until the day we stop following the footsteps of non-believers and respect and value the beauty in our own Allah (sw) given distinctiveness and I wish my sister Amina should have done that.

 

 

To answer my muslimah sister Amina, I would like to remind her that being feminist doesn't mean you should go against the principles of your religion, as we know Aisha (ra) even directed an army from the rear in a battle, she was a Mufti in her time and scores of Muslims came to her for Islamic teachings and advice but never led a prayer and never demanded to lead one.

 

It is reported that Sayyidah Aisha (ra) asked to have a slave named Dhakwan lead her in the Taraweeh salaat during a Ramadan, this slave was much less learned than she was, he did not even memorize the Qur'an and used to lead her in salaah whilst reading from the mushaf, her own degree of learning was vastly above his, despite her knowledge and her sublime status as Umm Al-Muminin it was to him that she ceded the right to lead Salaah.

 

If given a choice between stoic and compassion, I choose compassion and if given a choice between Feminist with a worldly leadership and heaven at my feet, Wallah I choose heaven.

 

PS. My Muslim and Somali sisters, don't allow yourself to be praised in a deceiving tone by going against the principles of your faith because if you accept the western ideologies as a way of life then that means you abandoned your Islamic faith and they will praise you for that and put your name on the front page of their newspapers and show your face on their television but remember one thing, some day you will end up in a place where no one can help you but only your Ibada and Amal, so live your life but don't forget the light above in other words, don't forget about the day of Khiyama.

 

May Allah(sw) Guide Us All Through The Right Path.

 

And Thanks for reading this long article.

 

 

Peace,Love & Unity.

[ADNAAN]

A very cleverly constructed article.

 

Her basic theory is that men’s activities shouldn’t be the woman’s standards. A good example was how western woman started to imitate men and even went as far as working in factories and only today did they realise that men and woman aren’t equipped for the same roles.

 

This article was also published in the Q news (an Islamic magazine)

 

www.q-news.com

 

To subscribe one without much hassle just send me ur credit card details (PM)

[lol]

A woman can lead prayers if there are a bunch of women who want to pray "Jam'a" but she will not stand apart from the first line, rather she will stand next her fellow muslimah's contrary to the male imam, where he stands infront.

 

However, a woman can never lead a man in prayer and she can never stand next or infront of him, her place is behind him. And the reason is not to distract him with temptation, of course the sheydan is doing his work.

 

But its true wat the sista wrote, I agree with her... I was one of those mislead women who saw feminism as the ultimate liberators, but I guess I need the light of Allah to see otherwise.

[ADNAAN]

First Women-Only Mosque Opens in Amsterdam

 

 

Controversial Egyptian feminist Saadawi inaugurated the mosque.

 

By Nasreddine Djebbi, IOL Correspondent

 

THE HAGUE, March 20, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – A number of Dutch Muslim women opened Saturday, March 19, a women-only mosque in the metropolitan city of Amsterdam.

 

Inaugurated by controversial Egyptian feminist writer Nawal El-Saadawi, the mosque is a part of a project carried out by the De Balie cultural center and the cultural development institute of the Forum organization, both financially backed by the government.

 

The mosque is run by women from A to Z, with a woman leading the prayer and another raising the Adhan (call to prayer).

 

The traditional curtains separating male and female worshipers in mosques disappeared from the novel mosque.

 

Men were conspicuous by their absence though a few of them attended the inauguration ceremony out of curiosity and sat at the back.

 

The project sponsors argue that it is a milestone as it will meet the “spiritual needs of Muslim women†and serve as a meeting point for “isolated†women away from male dominance.

 

Saadawi took the podium, preaching against what she called the “oppression†of Muslim women and urging women to “resist†for equal rights with men.

 

Saadawi faced an apostasy case in 2001 before an Egyptian court after she had been quoted by Egyptian newspapers as saying that hajj, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, was “a vestige of a pagan practice†and that Islamic inheritance law should be abolished.

 

A spokeswoman for the De Balie center, who requested anonymity, told IslamOnline.net that Saadawi has been selected because “she set herself up as a paradigm for women liberalization and their struggle to lift the oppression.â€

 

She, however, said that the mosque has nothing to do with the woman-led mixed-gender Friday prayer in New York City on March 18.

 

IOL correspondents says the project fits within the government’s tendency to boost what it sees as “liberal†Muslims against “extremistsâ€.

 

Diverting Attention

 

Ahmad Al-Rawi, the chairman of the Union of Islamic Organizations in Europe (UIOE), said things like the woman-led prayers and the new women-only mosque are western attempts to distract Muslims’ attention from pressing issues facing them in the West.

 

“Muslims [in the West] should rather be preoccupied with educating the young generations about their religion and protecting them from moral aberration,†he told IOL.

 

Rawi underlined that Muslim women in Europe are in no way inferior to their male partners.

 

“They [women] play a leading role in our organization and face no discrimination whatsoever,†he added.

 

Marzouk Abdullah, professor of Shari`ah in the Islamic European University in the Netherlands, urged Muslim women in Europe to display good intentions, cautioning them against committing wrongdoing unabashedly.

 

“We can never deny them their right to form an assembly to raise the awareness of the rights and responsibilities of women under Islam, if they are really for that,†he told IOL.

 

It is a sort of cliché to say that women are oppressed under Islam, but it is a fact to say that immigrant women in the country - particularly Muslims - are being discriminated against, Dutch Muslim female lawyer Famille Arslan told IOL on Monday, March 14.

 

She said that Muslim women in the Netherlands take the brunt of religious discrimination and racial profiling in the labor market because of their attire and names.

 

Muslims make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population. Turks represent 80 percent of the Muslim minority.

 

There are some 450 mosques in the Netherlands, 1,000 Islamic cultural centers, two Islamic universities and 42 preparatory schools, according to recent estimates.

 

Press reports have underlined that Dutch Muslims were subjected to religious discrimination and racist attacks on their places of worship in 2004.

 

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-03/20/article05.shtml

 

 

 

Narrated AbuTha'labah Jurthum ibn Nashir:

 

The Prophet (saw) said: Allah , the Exalted, has laid down certain obligations which do not neglect, and has set certain limits which do not transgress, and has forbidden certain things which do not commit, and has kept silent about other things out of mercy for you and not out of forgetfulness. So do not seek to discover them.

 

Transmitted by Daraqutni. Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah transmitted something similar from Salman al-Farsi