Women’s Mosque of America: Come as you are
The Women’s Mosque of America opens its doors for Friday prayers
Women stream into the space before the Jumma prayers begin. PHOTOS SAEED RAHMAN
“It is hard being a Muslim in America right now,” says Saroor Raziuddin. “I want to leave the mosque feeling happy about being a Muslim.” Raziuddin explains that she and her daughters grapple with enough challenges and discrimination in their lives as American Muslims and thus, look to their mosques as spaces where they are treated as equals.
Raziuddin, a resident of Los Angeles, recalls the day one of her daughters asked if she could sit towards the front of their local mosque so she could better hear a speaker. “She was told she could only sit in the women’s section,” Raziuddin recalls, saying she was unable to explain to her daughter why women were treated differently than male congregants. She hastens to add that her mosque is far more progressive than other mosques but “at the end of the day, traditional ways are accepted and people do not push for change.”
We are at the Pico-Union Project in Downtown LA and Raziuddin is here to attend the monthly Friday prayers for the second time. The space, which was previously a synagogue, is now open to communities of different faiths. Some volunteers and board members arrive two hours prior to the prayers to arrange seating. Church pews are placed outside the building to make room for daris, which are unrolled for attendees to sit on. On this day, there seem to be more journalists and camera crews than the organisers. But that quickly changes. At its full strength, close to 150 women are in attendance for prayers.
“As a child, I always dreamed I would build a mosque. I thought it would be at the end of my life and I did not know that it would be a women’s mosque,” explains 29-year-old comedy writer and film-maker Hasna Maznavi, who is the founder and co-president of the Women’s Mosque of America. Maznavi’s family attended Jumma prayers at their local mosque while she was growing up in Long Beach, California, and private tutors were hired to teach children the Holy Quran in Arabic. The mosque welcomed men and women as equals, but that attitude shifted when the mosque was renovated. “The mosque was re-built in another culture’s style,” Maznavi explains. “The women were now in a separate section on the second floor. I was cut off from the main congregation and situated behind a glass window.” The mosque was still a welcoming space, but its architecture began to define its culture of acceptance and Maznavi says she no longer felt as welcome as she had previously. “When I went to other mosques, I saw that cultural ideas were being practiced instead of the Islamic practice of inclusion,” she says.
“Growing up in America, often your only connection to the Muslim community is on Friday, which is why Jumma is so important to us,” explains Maznavi. It was after the attacks on September 11, 2001, that Maznavi says she “took ownership of Islam and fell in love with it.” She adds, “At that time, I heard Quranic verses cherry-picked and taken out of context. I read the Holy Quran in English and it then became a way of life — a choice — instead of a marker of my identity.”
While in college at Berkley, Maznavi fell in love with Masjid Al-Iman in Oakland, California. “The sign of any mosque’s health is the number of converts,” she feels. “This shows that no culture is dominating the space and that new Muslims feel welcome here.” Upon returning to LA after her studies and attending other mosques, Maznavi realised she wanted a mosque where she could hear women speak. The crystalising moment came when she attended a conference, Reconstituting Female Authority in Islam, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I realised the tension wasn’t within me but was part of a greater problem. We had lost the vast legacy and scholarship of female leadership in our religion,” she says.
After a year of taking courses at an online Muslim women’s college, Maznavi, with support from friends, took to social media to call a town hall meeting. The first meeting was held on August 23, 2014. “We really wanted to hear what the community needed,” she says. The first Jumma prayer was then held on January 30, 2015.
While Maznavi had the full support of her family, another congregant, Nia Malika Dixon’s family was unsure if a women’s mosque is allowed in Islam. The Baltimore native, who now lives in LA, says her family is concerned that she might be putting herself “in a position that would not please Allah (SWT).”
Dixon, who is also a board member of the Women’s Mosque, says that as a Muslim woman growing up in a Muslim community, she found that she had no access to her local mosque. “As a woman, you are not made to feel welcome and this is counterproductive to spiritual development,” she feels. Dixon, who had stopped attending the mosque due to such an unwelcoming attitude, says that the first Jumma prayers at the Women’s Mosque were “spiritually rejuvenating”.
Dixon rejects the notion that the Women’s Mosque is part of a sort of reformation. “The politics in Islam are patriarchal and men get scared at the idea of a woman leading the prayer,” she says. She adds that some Muslims questioned if a woman leading a prayer could be haram as there was no precedence for this, while others said that the precedence was that a man always led the prayer. “To those people, I say now there is precedence,” says Dixon. On this particular Friday, she is leading the prayer.
Sana Muttalib, co-president of the Women’s Mosque, agrees with Dixon that the mosque is in no way part of a reformatory effort. She hopes that attendees would feel empowered and more confident by visiting the mosque. “There seemed to be no space where women could go and obtain Islamic knowledge from other women in a comfortable setting,” Muttalib explains. Even if there is one woman who comes to this space, and feels closer to her Creator, we have accomplished our goal.”
Muttalib adds the first Jumma had been attended by a diverse group, including Buddhist, Jewish and Christian women. “One of the wonderful things about being in America is the amount of diversity in the country and one of the wonderful things about being a Muslim in America is that you can learn from and have meaningful relationships with people from all over the world,” she feels.
Kristina Ortega, another congregant, had been interested in studying Islam since she was a child. The LA native teaches theology at a local high school. “I cover women in Islam in my course and want to dispel myths and misconceptions about Islam oppressing women,” she says. She felt the mosque is useful for non-Muslims like herself as they are able to gain knowledge about Muslims here.
Dixon opened the prayers on Friday by laying out some of the mosque’s policies. These include a ‘come as you are’ dress code. “We will not be policing your scarf or your clothing,” Dixon tells the gathered women. She explains that the mosque is an “inclusive middle ground space that welcomes all Muslims, from every school of thought and at any level of religious practice.”
Her opening words are followed by the azaan, a khutba by Professor Rose Aslan, an Assistant Professor of Theology at the California Lutheran University, a congregational two rakaat prayer and an optional four rakaats. After the prayers, there is a community discussion.
Many of the women who streamed out after the prayers spoke about Aslan’s message of religious pluralism. For scholar Keya Bhagirath, Aslan’s ideas reiterated a view she has been hearing in her classes. “I identify as a Christian and grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood, so learning about Muslim culture brings it all full circle,” Bhagirath explains. “I get to see the similarity and overlapping beliefs within the traditions.” She said she was also struck by how Aslan touched on the struggles faced by Christian and Jewish women leaders.
“I have always connected more with women from other faiths and Aslan said not to feel guilty about this,” explains another woman, Hafza Iran. The Chicago native, who moved to LA two years ago, says that her family would probably not attend prayers here as she was brought up in a secular household and is the only member of her family who has found the need to connect to her spiritual side.
Software engineer Sadaf Raza added that there seemed to be some incorrect perceptions about the mosque. “People think women are abandoning their local mosques and creating divisions here,” she says. “This is not feminism, this is part of a woman’s right to have an education. I may not be comfortable asking some questions of a male imam.” Raza, who moved to LA from Pakistan, added that Muslims should move beyond their first response to spaces like the mosque, which most of the times seems to be fear and anger.
“Some of my friends are hesitant to attend prayers here and they don’t understand why a regular mosque does not fulfill all my needs,” says Karachi’ite Sana Hasnain, who drove from Pasadena to attend prayers at the mosque. She admits she shared her friends’ hesitation in the beginning but found the khutba at the first prayer she attended compelling enough to return. “There is a need for such spaces. In other mosques, women’s participation is limited,” she says. She is hopeful the women attending prayers this Friday would return with increased confidence to their local mosques.
Even though Raziuddin and her parents, who live in northern New Jersey, have not had a conversation about the Women’s Mosque, she thinks they would welcome the idea behind it. “My father now understands why it is crucial that women not be treated as second-class citizens,” she explains, adding that she is excited to bring her daughters to the mosque for the next Friday prayers.
Saeed Rahman is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He tweets @saeedrahman1
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 19th, 2015.
Raziuddin, a resident of Los Angeles, recalls the day one of her daughters asked if she could sit towards the front of their local mosque so she could better hear a speaker. “She was told she could only sit in the women’s section,” Raziuddin recalls, saying she was unable to explain to her daughter why women were treated differently than male congregants. She hastens to add that her mosque is far more progressive than other mosques but “at the end of the day, traditional ways are accepted and people do not push for change.”
Professor Rose Aslan listens to the azaan before delivering the khutba. PHOTO: SAEED RAHMAN
We are at the Pico-Union Project in Downtown LA and Raziuddin is here to attend the monthly Friday prayers for the second time. The space, which was previously a synagogue, is now open to communities of different faiths. Some volunteers and board members arrive two hours prior to the prayers to arrange seating. Church pews are placed outside the building to make room for daris, which are unrolled for attendees to sit on. On this day, there seem to be more journalists and camera crews than the organisers. But that quickly changes. At its full strength, close to 150 women are in attendance for prayers.
“As a child, I always dreamed I would build a mosque. I thought it would be at the end of my life and I did not know that it would be a women’s mosque,” explains 29-year-old comedy writer and film-maker Hasna Maznavi, who is the founder and co-president of the Women’s Mosque of America. Maznavi’s family attended Jumma prayers at their local mosque while she was growing up in Long Beach, California, and private tutors were hired to teach children the Holy Quran in Arabic. The mosque welcomed men and women as equals, but that attitude shifted when the mosque was renovated. “The mosque was re-built in another culture’s style,” Maznavi explains. “The women were now in a separate section on the second floor. I was cut off from the main congregation and situated behind a glass window.” The mosque was still a welcoming space, but its architecture began to define its culture of acceptance and Maznavi says she no longer felt as welcome as she had previously. “When I went to other mosques, I saw that cultural ideas were being practiced instead of the Islamic practice of inclusion,” she says.
Nia Malika Dixon addresses the congregation. PHOTO: SAEED RAHMAN
“Growing up in America, often your only connection to the Muslim community is on Friday, which is why Jumma is so important to us,” explains Maznavi. It was after the attacks on September 11, 2001, that Maznavi says she “took ownership of Islam and fell in love with it.” She adds, “At that time, I heard Quranic verses cherry-picked and taken out of context. I read the Holy Quran in English and it then became a way of life — a choice — instead of a marker of my identity.”
While in college at Berkley, Maznavi fell in love with Masjid Al-Iman in Oakland, California. “The sign of any mosque’s health is the number of converts,” she feels. “This shows that no culture is dominating the space and that new Muslims feel welcome here.” Upon returning to LA after her studies and attending other mosques, Maznavi realised she wanted a mosque where she could hear women speak. The crystalising moment came when she attended a conference, Reconstituting Female Authority in Islam, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I realised the tension wasn’t within me but was part of a greater problem. We had lost the vast legacy and scholarship of female leadership in our religion,” she says.
After a year of taking courses at an online Muslim women’s college, Maznavi, with support from friends, took to social media to call a town hall meeting. The first meeting was held on August 23, 2014. “We really wanted to hear what the community needed,” she says. The first Jumma prayer was then held on January 30, 2015.
While Maznavi had the full support of her family, another congregant, Nia Malika Dixon’s family was unsure if a women’s mosque is allowed in Islam. The Baltimore native, who now lives in LA, says her family is concerned that she might be putting herself “in a position that would not please Allah (SWT).”
Dixon, who is also a board member of the Women’s Mosque, says that as a Muslim woman growing up in a Muslim community, she found that she had no access to her local mosque. “As a woman, you are not made to feel welcome and this is counterproductive to spiritual development,” she feels. Dixon, who had stopped attending the mosque due to such an unwelcoming attitude, says that the first Jumma prayers at the Women’s Mosque were “spiritually rejuvenating”.
Congregants in the Pico-Union space prior to the prayer. PHOTO: SAEED RAHMAN
Dixon rejects the notion that the Women’s Mosque is part of a sort of reformation. “The politics in Islam are patriarchal and men get scared at the idea of a woman leading the prayer,” she says. She adds that some Muslims questioned if a woman leading a prayer could be haram as there was no precedence for this, while others said that the precedence was that a man always led the prayer. “To those people, I say now there is precedence,” says Dixon. On this particular Friday, she is leading the prayer.
Sana Muttalib, co-president of the Women’s Mosque, agrees with Dixon that the mosque is in no way part of a reformatory effort. She hopes that attendees would feel empowered and more confident by visiting the mosque. “There seemed to be no space where women could go and obtain Islamic knowledge from other women in a comfortable setting,” Muttalib explains. Even if there is one woman who comes to this space, and feels closer to her Creator, we have accomplished our goal.”
Muttalib adds the first Jumma had been attended by a diverse group, including Buddhist, Jewish and Christian women. “One of the wonderful things about being in America is the amount of diversity in the country and one of the wonderful things about being a Muslim in America is that you can learn from and have meaningful relationships with people from all over the world,” she feels.
Kristina Ortega, another congregant, had been interested in studying Islam since she was a child. The LA native teaches theology at a local high school. “I cover women in Islam in my course and want to dispel myths and misconceptions about Islam oppressing women,” she says. She felt the mosque is useful for non-Muslims like herself as they are able to gain knowledge about Muslims here.
Dixon opened the prayers on Friday by laying out some of the mosque’s policies. These include a ‘come as you are’ dress code. “We will not be policing your scarf or your clothing,” Dixon tells the gathered women. She explains that the mosque is an “inclusive middle ground space that welcomes all Muslims, from every school of thought and at any level of religious practice.”
Her opening words are followed by the azaan, a khutba by Professor Rose Aslan, an Assistant Professor of Theology at the California Lutheran University, a congregational two rakaat prayer and an optional four rakaats. After the prayers, there is a community discussion.
Many of the women who streamed out after the prayers spoke about Aslan’s message of religious pluralism. For scholar Keya Bhagirath, Aslan’s ideas reiterated a view she has been hearing in her classes. “I identify as a Christian and grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood, so learning about Muslim culture brings it all full circle,” Bhagirath explains. “I get to see the similarity and overlapping beliefs within the traditions.” She said she was also struck by how Aslan touched on the struggles faced by Christian and Jewish women leaders.
“I have always connected more with women from other faiths and Aslan said not to feel guilty about this,” explains another woman, Hafza Iran. The Chicago native, who moved to LA two years ago, says that her family would probably not attend prayers here as she was brought up in a secular household and is the only member of her family who has found the need to connect to her spiritual side.
Software engineer Sadaf Raza added that there seemed to be some incorrect perceptions about the mosque. “People think women are abandoning their local mosques and creating divisions here,” she says. “This is not feminism, this is part of a woman’s right to have an education. I may not be comfortable asking some questions of a male imam.” Raza, who moved to LA from Pakistan, added that Muslims should move beyond their first response to spaces like the mosque, which most of the times seems to be fear and anger.
“Some of my friends are hesitant to attend prayers here and they don’t understand why a regular mosque does not fulfill all my needs,” says Karachi’ite Sana Hasnain, who drove from Pasadena to attend prayers at the mosque. She admits she shared her friends’ hesitation in the beginning but found the khutba at the first prayer she attended compelling enough to return. “There is a need for such spaces. In other mosques, women’s participation is limited,” she says. She is hopeful the women attending prayers this Friday would return with increased confidence to their local mosques.
Even though Raziuddin and her parents, who live in northern New Jersey, have not had a conversation about the Women’s Mosque, she thinks they would welcome the idea behind it. “My father now understands why it is crucial that women not be treated as second-class citizens,” she explains, adding that she is excited to bring her daughters to the mosque for the next Friday prayers.
Saeed Rahman is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He tweets @saeedrahman1
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 19th, 2015.