Women as imams: Encyclopedia II - Women as imams - Women as imams of mixed-gender congregations

Women as imams - Women as imams of mixed-gender congregations

Women as imams - Traditionally

In the Hanbali madhhab, women are allowed to lead mixed congregations in the optional tarawih prayers in Ramadan if they are well-versed in the Qur'an; however, they are to stand behind the men, in the women's rows, rather than in front. The Hanbalite jurists stipulate that this to be permissible only for old women, only when no man knowledgeable in the Qur'an is present. They do not consider it permissible for the Jumu'ah (Friday) prayer (as this is an obligatory prayer, which is not enacted upon women).

In the early years of Islam, one sect of Kharijites founded by Chabib Ben Yazîd Al-Harûrî held that it was permissible to entrust the imamate to a woman if she were able to carry out the required duties. The founder's wife, Ghazala Al-Harûrîya, even commanded troops, following the example of Abu Sufyan's daughter Juwayrîya at the battle of Yarmuk.

Modern Islamic academicians such as Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, based on the Umm Waraqah hadith mentioned above, consider it permissible for a knowledgeable woman to lead mixed prayers within her own household, as he considers this to largely obviate the danger of the men being aroused by her presence. This view, however, is rejected by the vast majority of Fiqh specialists and religious experts. Traditional scholars caution against Yusuf Qaradawi's Fiqh (jurisprudence) methodology, and especially his excessive leniency to the point of laxity. He does not limit himself to the relied upon positions of the four Sunni schools of fiqh, and is notorious among scholars for his many aberrant positions. They respect him as a scholar; they are cautious and caution others about those positions of his that depart from the mainstream.

Women as imams - People's Republic of China

Recently, some Chinese Muslim women have been able to serve as imams of all-female congregations, according to a recent BBC article. The female imams are officially licensed by the Islamic Association of China. [6]

Women as imams - South Africa 1994 to date

One of the earliest reported cases of a woman imam in the West occurred in 1995 in Johannesburg, South Africa. For about two years, a congregation met every Friday for the Jumu'ah prayer and every night in Ramadan for the special Tarawih prayer in a building owned by the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa (MYM). [7] The khutbah for the Jumu'ah was delivered by either a male or female khatib and the imams for the prayer also included men and women. One of the prime movers behind this congregation was well-known South African Muslim women's rights activist, Shamima Shaikh (1960–1998). [8] A year earlier, Amina Wadud (see below) became the first woman in South Africa to deliver the jumu'ah khutbah, at the Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town. Farid Esack discusses this event in his 1997 book Qur'an, Liberation, and Pluralism. [9] Following that event, both the Claremont Main Road Mosque and Masjidul Islam, in Johannesburg, often have had women speakers for Jumu'ah.

In January 1998, as per her wishes, one of the four funeral prayers for Ms. Shaikh was led by a woman friend.

In 2003, a new venue for Eid prayer was established in Durban by a group of individuals and was later taken on by an organisation called Taking Islam to the People (TIP). The venue is designed to allow entire families to attend the Eid prayer together in a pleasant and comfortable atmosphere. Located at Durban's North Beach, the Eid prayer is an open-air event performed against the backdrop of the Indian Ocean. Each event includes two lectures, one each by a male and a female.

Women as imams - North American Queer Muslim community 1999 to date

Organizations in the Gay Muslim community in Canada and the US have had female imams for a few years. Ghazala Anwar led the Friday congregation at the Al-Fateha conference in New York City in 1999, and at the Salaam Conference in Toronto in June 2003. The latter congregation had over one hundred and fifty people, both straight and queer, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Over seventy people joined in the Maghrib (sunset) prayer congregation at the Salaam iftar (fast-breaking) in Ramadan in October 2004 led by Nur. Women regularly lead congregations at Salaam Juma's and zikr sessions.

Women as imams - Canada Mainstream Mosques

2004: 20-year-old Maryam Mirza, delivered the second half of the Eid al-Fitr khutbah at the Etobicoke mosque in Toronto, Canada, run by the United Muslim Association.

2004: Yasmin Shadeer led the night 'Isha prayer with her congregants including men and women. [10] This is the first recorded occasion in contemporary times where a woman led a congregation in prayer in a mosque. The United Muslim Association is determined to continue this practice of having women delivering the khutbah and leading the salah.

2005: Pamela Taylor, a Muslim since 1986 led mixed-gender prayers in Toronto, Canada on Canada Day.

Women as imams - Bahrain

2004: In an aborted attempt of a woman delivering a Jumu'ah khutbah, Bahraini police arrested a 40-year old woman in 2004 for trying to deliver the khutbah at one of the biggest mosques in the island state. The incident took place on the last Friday of Ramadan. The would-be khatib was wearing full male dress with an artificial beard and moustache. The mosque was packed with 7,000 worshippers. When sat on the minbar just before she was to deliver the khutbah, some worshippers realised that the new imam was a woman in disguise. They and the mosque's imam, Sheikh Adnan Al-Qattan, handed her over to the police. [11]

Women as imams - USA

The Wadud Prayer: (March 18, 2005) NOTE The Wadud prayer is not the first woman-led mixed-gender congregational prayer (see the above noted events), but the first to gain national and international attention.

In early 2005, it was announced that Amina Wadud, an African American Muslim, and a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, would lead a congregation in Friday salat prayer in New York, sponsored by the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour, [12] under the leadership of Asra Q. Nomani, by the website "Muslim WakeUp!," and by members of the Progressive Muslim Union. Nomani has written that she was inspired to organize the event after reading Michael Muhammad Knight's novel The Taqwacores in which a burqa-clad punk girl leads her male housemates in prayer. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America responded by issuing a fatwa reiterating the traditional view: "A unanimous consensus for the entire Ummah (Muslim community) in the east and west [is] that women can not lead the Friday prayer nor can they deliver the [sermon]. Whoever takes part in such a prayer, then his prayer is nullified, whether he was an Imam or a follower." Supporters of the event insisted that, to the contrary, it was a long overdue change; Khaled Abou El-Fadl, professor of Islamic Studies at UCLA, California (apparently unaware of previous cases of women leading mixed congregations), said that "What the fundamentalists are worried about is that there's going to be a ripple effect not just in the U.S. but all over the Muslim world. The women who are learned and frustrated that they cannot be the imam are going to see that someone got the guts to break ranks and do it."

Three mosques refused the group; the event was then scheduled to be held at an art gallery in the SoHo district of Manhattan, but this site was changed after a bomb threat. The final site selected for the service was the Synod House owned by and adjoining the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

On Friday March 18, Amina Wadud acted as imam for a congregation of about 60 women and 40 men seated together, without the traditional separate male and female sections. The call to prayer was given by another woman, Suheyla El-Attar. Wadud stated that "I don't want to change Muslim mosques. I want to encourage the hearts of Muslims, both in their public, private and ritual affairs, to believe they are one and equal." A small number of protestors gathered outside.

Afterwards, the general 'ulama response from across the world has been similar to that of the widely watched Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who responded that, while a woman could lead other women and even possibly her family in salah, she could not lead a mixed group including non-mahram males: "The different juristic schools agree that it is not permissible for women to lead men in the obligatory Prayer, though some scholars voice the opinion that the woman who is well-versed in the Qur’an may lead the members of her family, including men, in Prayer on the basis that there is no room for stirring instincts in this case."

The Progressive Muslim Union followed the Wadud prayer with a Woman-led Prayer initiative. The initiative sought to bring together the varied Progressive opinions on the prayer as well as engage more conservative Muslims by encouraging further debate, highlighting legal opinions in support of the prayer (as well as giving space to the overwhelming negative opinions), facilitating Muslims who would like to organize future prayers, and documenting those events as they heard of them. Progressives and others sympathetic to bringing about a transformation of gender privilege in Islam continue to work for the establishment of woman-led prayer.

Many perceived the Wadud prayer to be an inevitable reaction to the deplorable situation of women in mosques in North America. The attention garnered by the event forced more conservative Muslim organizations to publicly acknowledge the situtation and call for changes. ISNA responded with guidelines for Women-Friendly Mosques. Scholars such as Imam Zaid Shakir have been calling attention to and working to change mosque conditions for years. For example see Imam Zaid's essay "Flight from the Masjid". Progressives and others would argue, though, that mosque conditions are merely a symptom of a widespread sense of male entitlement following centuries of male privilege in the intellectual and poltical power centers of Islam.

Women continue to lead prayers in the United States in Queer and Mainstream communities with or without media coverage such as Nakia Jackson's 2006 Eid al-Adha prayer.

Women as imams - Spain

Spanish Muslims have been some of the greatest supporters of the woman-led prayer movement in Islam. Spanish Muslim religious scholar Abdennur Prado responded immediately to the Wadud prayer with a supportive legal opinion. In October of 2005 Wadud led a mixed gender congregational prayer in Barcelona.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Women as imams of mixed-gender congregations", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki