Woman's fight for equality in W.Va. mosque to expand nationwide

<p>Nearly seven months ago in the middle of Ramadan, Asra Nomani took a deep breath and entered the front door of the Islamic Center in Morgantown, shunning tradition and the women's balcony to pray on the main floor.</p><p>The 38-year-old single mother had no intention of praying right next to the men. She just wanted to be able to see and hear the prayer leader.</p><p>Her simple act of defiance has sparked what she hopes will be the first step toward ending gender discrimination and reclaiming Muslim women's rights at mosques across the nation.</p><p>"To deny women access to space is to deny access to participation," Nomani said Wednesday. "We want voice and we want leadership."</p><p>Although there was never an official policy at the Morgantown mosque, it had become custom that women pray in the balcony and enter through a separate door "to protect their privacy," said Christine Arja, a Fairmont lawyer, who is a spokeswoman for the mosque's executive committee.</p><p>"Many people don't understand the manner in which Muslims pray," Arja said. "We pray in a line with our shoulders touching and our backsides do go up in the air. Many women don't want to be shoulder-to-shoulder with men."</p><p>Still, earlier this week _ and less than a month after a new executive committee was elected, including the mosque's first woman _ leaders clarified that women can pray behind men in the main prayer space. The mosque's small membership is largely made up of West Virginia University students and staff members.</p><p>"Less than a year ago, they told me, 'Sister, please use the back entrance,'" Nomani said. "Now, they're talking about greeting us at the door. This is an important victory toward removing the barriers that keep women from full participation."</p><p>Since Nomani started praying in the main hall, along with her mother and 13-year-old niece, only one woman has joined her. Many women, she said, "still feel like they're breaking the rules."</p><p>And some who supported Nomani in the beginning feel alienated by the spotlight she shined on their once peaceful mosque, Arja said.</p><p>Nomani, an author and journalist who has written for the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, was born in India, but moved to Morgantown when she was 10. After traveling throughout the world as a reporter, she returned to West Virginia last year to raise her son near family.</p><p>Her father, a retired WVU professor, was one of the founding members of the mosque built 23 years ago. Today, he apologizes to his daughter for not recognizing women's rights from the beginning, saying he didn't know better.</p><p>Islam teaches there is only one God and Muhammad was his messenger. Muslims place an importance on prayers, charity, fasting, pilgrimage and the act of reading the Quran.</p><p>But worship practices vary. Even in the United States, some mosques ban women altogether.</p><p>In fact, a growing number of U.S. mosques put women behind a partition or in another room to pray, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The group reports a rise from 52 percent in 1994 to 66 percent in 2000.</p><p>Many other mosques allow women and men to pray in the same space, including Islam's holiest mosque in Mecca, which prompted Nomani and other like-minded women to form Daughters of Hajar.</p><p>The group, named for the second wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael, plans to gather in Morgantown Friday to march to the mosque, enter through the front door and pray in the main hall. A public reading to discuss the new generation of American Muslim women also is planned.</p><p>They hope to use the conference to launch two nationwide campaigns: "Take Back Your Mosque," to help women claim their rights, and a "Wedding Night Campaign" to educate women about intimacy.</p><p>"Sexuality is often used as an excuse to deny us rights," Nomani said. "One of our proclamations of a woman's rights is her right to say, 'No.'"</p><p>Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur of Atlanta, an author and a recent chief operating officer of Azizah, a magazine for Muslim women, is one of the group's founding members.</p><p>"Morgantown has become a symbol for us and a model for mosques across the nation," Abdul-Ghafur said.</p><p>Other members include author Samina Ali of San Francisco; Sarah Eltantawi, communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in New York; Mohja Kahf, an associate professor of literature at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and a columnist for the Internet magazine Muslim Wake-Up; and Nomani's mother, Sajida, a retired business owner and president of the Morgantown Muslims and Friends group.</p><p>Friday's conference is co-sponsored by the West Virginia University Center for Women's Studies, the Shelley A. Marshall Foundation, the Morgantown Public Library and Morgantown Muslims and Friends.</p><p>"Morgantown will go down in history as a place where the rights of Muslim women were affirmed," Nomani said.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/6/167833